Rivalita
by psikeval
Summary: Sark found her purely by accident in the streets of London. Tripped over her, more accurately. Sarkney, alternate S3.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer (first & only): I own nothing.  
Title by Rise Against, quote by Rob Thomas.

**I. Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated**

_How do you sleep while the city's burning?  
Where do you go when you can't go home?  
How do you drink when there's blood in the water?  
Where do you turn when the world moves on?_

Sark found her purely by accident in the streets of London. Tripped over her, more accurately.

He saw the pile of garbage spilling out from the alley, and was fully prepared to step around it. Just as he did so, at that precarious moment that comes with every step—where balance is tenuous and sure-footedness comes only with the practice of having walked for all of one's life—just then, the pile moved. Sark was a man possessed of above-average grace, but that did nothing to save him from doing what anyone else would have done: falling hard on the pavement.

Since it was—unsurprisingly—drizzling in London that day, and the sidewalk was—also unsurprisingly—less than clean, Sark's indignation was more on behalf of his new and expensive suit than any bodily injury suffered. He pushed himself up with both hands, turning with a harsh word for the offending bum . . .

. . . and nearly choked on his own breath.

"Bristow."

She looked up at him with nothing but confusion and alarm in her eyes. Her hair was tangled and soaked with rain, and the blanket she'd wrapped around herself was just as saturated with water. There was no recognition, no spark of anger. That alone was enough to make him doubt his own eyes. Sark crouched down in front of her, careful to keep his knees off the wet pavement. He stared at her intently for an amount of time that would have incited the Sydney Bristow he remembered to slap him, or at least threaten him. Another Project Helix creation? A truly freakish resemblance?

"Sydney Bristow," he said clearly, looking the woman right in the eye.

Her lips moved—mouthing the name after him?—but she did not speak.

Sark glanced to the left and right, checking for pedestrians, cars, anything. He didn't even completely dismiss the notion that this might be the most bizarre and elaborate CIA operation ever conceived, all for the purpose of bringing him back into custody. Cursory examination revealed nothing, so, for lack of a better plan, he rephrased his words as a question.

"Is your name Sydney Bristow?" A little exasperation leaked into his tone, but there was no helping it.

"I think . . ." The woman bit her lip, looking wretchedly lost. "I think it might be."

This was truly just too strange. "Well," said Sark. "I think you _might_ want to call the CIA and tell them you're alive." He took her hand—damp and startlingly cold—and wrapped her fingers around his cell phone. It was untraceable, and besides, he had others. He wasn't about to sit here and wait around for the extraction team to show up. He stood up in one fluid motion, fully intending to leave behind this strange apparition from the past.

The only thing stopping him was a pale, bony hand that shot out and clutched his arm with a surprisingly iron-like grip.

Sark looked down at the face of Sydney Bristow.

"Please," she whispered, barely audible over the sounds of the street. "Help me."


	2. Chapter 2

Title by Tiger Army, quote by Rise Against.

**II. Ghosts of Memory**

_Hold on. Slow down.  
Take it from the top, now, and tell me everything._

While she showered, Sark sat quietly in one of the hotel room's two armchairs. Others might have paced, but he had never been much for pacing. He could think perfectly well from a comfortable reclining position, so he saw no reason to do otherwise.

It had been quite a trick to get her inside. He'd brought her to the back entrance, used the freight elevator, wanting to avoid anyone finding out that the CIA's own Sydney Bristow was alive and well and living—well, huddling—in London. The last thing he needed was to be tagged as her accomplice. Luckily, he'd wreaked enough havoc on the hallway security cameras to be relatively sure they'd be out of commission for another day or two.

The question remained, though—the crucial question.

_Why_ _was he doing this?_

Sark soon concluded that dwelling on his motives was a pointless endeavor. He had done what he had done, and the much more pressing issue was now what to do about . . . this woman. Sydney Bristow. He had to think of her as Sydney, because otherwise the whole situation took on such an absurdly complicated hypothetical slant that he couldn't be bothered to fathom it. No matter how unlikely it might seem—what with her being supposedly dead—he would continue to assume that Agent Bristow was the woman currently showering in his hotel room.

So . . . now what?

His mind took a momentary break from analyzing the entirety of the situation to deliver a practical reminder. _Clothes. She'll need clothes._

When Sydney emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later, clad in the complimentary robe that was too big for her, a mismatched heap of clothing was waiting on the bed. She stared at it, then turned a confused glance on Sark.

"I don't know how much will fit, but it's the best I could do."

Abstractly, he noticed that he spoke to this strange version of Sydney in a cautious, formal tone. He disliked that. He disliked the sensation of not knowing where he stood in the current situation. He also disliked having to buy female undergarments for a possibly deranged, possibly amnesiac, possibly unfathomably conniving CIA agent who had threatened his life more than once, but that was another topic altogether.

She disappeared once again with an armful of clothing and emerged in yoga pants and a t-shirt, both too large.

"Thank you," she murmured, so softly he almost didn't catch it. Bristow approached and sat in the chair opposite his, her movements slow and careful, never taking her eyes off him. The paranoia was actually comforting—it was nice to know not everything had changed.

"Do you know me?" asked Sydney, and all comfort vanished. "You said my name was . . ."

"Sydney Bristow," he supplied.

"Yes." She nodded to herself. "Of course. I know that, its just . . . confusing, sometimes." Her tone was defensive. "There are so many others. Julia."

"What?" For a split second Sark thought she'd called him by his first name, and was understandably taken aback.

"Julia. Are you sure my name isn't Julia?"

"Quite sure," he assured her, feeling spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with this conversation's turn for the surreal.

Sydney closed her eyes, presumably to concentrate. Her knees were tucked beneath her chin, and her fingers tightly interlaced over her knees. "Julia . . . Thorne," she murmured, and then repeated it: "Julia Thorne."

"You think your name is Julia Thorne?" he asked, attempting to clarify.

Her eyes snapped open, and all the old temper had returned. "My name is Sydney Bristow, you ugly bastard."

For a tense, prolonged moment, Sark merely stared at her, stunned into silence. "Well," he finally remarked. "You seem to have regained your certainty."

"Sorry." From the look on her face, she seemed confused and mortified in equal parts. "I didn't mean to . . ." The sentence trailed off into nothing as she studied Sark carefully, brow furrowed. It almost looked painful, the effort she was apparently putting into this business of remembering.

"_What_ didn't you—"

"Wait!" she interrupted, and her intelligent brown eyes finally regarded Sark with the customary suspicion. Sydney sat up straight, leaving her arms and legs free. Her eyes narrowed. "I remember you."

"Do you?" Sark wondered if he should be reaching for the nearest deadly weapon.

"You killed Quan Li," said Sydney, pointing at Sark as if to illustrate her certainty. "You work for . . . the Man," she finished almost triumphantly. "Khasinau."

Sark tilted his head to one side, truly intrigued. "Your mother," he corrected her.

"My mother is dead," she retorted, quickly and coldly.

"Is she?"

The simplicity of the question seemed to throw her more than anything else. Her expression changed almost too quickly for him to follow, from bewilderment to fear to shock . . . and when she finally looked back at him, Sydney Bristow was utterly, heartwrenchingly lost.

"No," she whispered. Then, to Sark's horror, she crumpled to the floor and burst into tears.

For a while, he just sat perfectly still, hoping for the emotional storm to pass, but that felt callous even to him. So he stood up, only to be once again stymied for an appropriate response. Sark's grey-blue eyes darted around the hotel room as if seeking a set of written instructions. He couldn't remember a time when he'd felt more out of his depth than in that moment. No one ever cried around him.

Actually, plenty of people cried around him, but that was always more of a _no! No, please, don't hurt me!_ sort of crying, which he suspected didn't count.

Slowly, warily, as if approaching a lioness with a leash, Sark knelt next to her.

Sydney, for her part, was barely aware that anyone else existed in the world, let alone in the room. Some old, practical part of herself knew that she was on the verge—if not past the verge—of hysteria, but her mind was racing with too much desperate speed to listen. _Nothing made sense_ and she wanted to stop crying and ask Daddy what was going on, but he wasn't here, he was on a business trip—no, not business, he was in the CIA and he'd programmed her to be a spy and _god she hated him for that_ but that was stupid because she didn't have parents, her family had died in a fire, that's what they had told her

and why wasn't Vaughn here to help her? but Vaughn didn't love her anymore, he didn't care, and why did _she_ care? after all, she'd only met him yesterday, some annoyingly good-looking man while she sat there with her red hair and her swollen jaw, looking like Will's sister—where was Will? lying in the bathtub bleeding, trying to find out why Danny died well of course he died because of Sloane (Sloane the humanitarian?) and she wanted to have a mirror to see what she looked like because she couldn't remember her hair was blonde brown red white blue tangled and knotted as she lay in her cell (what cell?)

Vaughn, Vaughn, _Vaughn_, but he was _married_, why the hell was he married? she thought he was married to Alice but he wasn't but now he had given up on them and given up on her and oh god she'd seen her own funeral Emily's Danny's her mother's funeral you are _admonished_ that's actually the word they use _admonished_ to refrain from excessive displays of emotion

Sydney felt arms go around her, soft and tentative, but she did not react. She was too far gone.

this was stupid this was so so so stupid she thought the procedure (what procedure?) would make things better and now here she was all torn up with no place solid to set her feet and god what had she been thinking to try something like that (what?) it would have been better to remember it all whatever it all was but now it was fractured mashed crushed together Mom Dad Vaughn Sydney Simon Will Francie Charlie Danny Weiss Donovan Sark Dixon Lauren Kendall Cole Sloane Devlin Marshall Allison Lazarey Julia Julia Julia oh god make it stop _make it stop_

A pricking on the inside of her arm, and it all went black.


	3. Chapter 3

Title by Bif Naked, quote by Fall Out Boy.

**III. Moment of Weakness**

_I'm having another episode.  
I just need a stronger dose._

Sark had severe misgivings about allowing Sydney to regain consciousness. Last night she had cried until she was literally unable to breathe, and the sedative had been his only option. What if nothing had changed, and whatever madness had come over her was triggered again? He had another syringe in hand, just in case, but he couldn't just medicate her indefinitely.

If all else failed, he would hand her over to the CIA for a hefty price, and _they_ could medicate her indefinitely. He wouldn't put it past them to keep a crazed woman in a coma in the hope of eventually finding a remedy. In fact, somehow it sounded just their style.

He passed the syringe from hand to hand. The prospect of helplessly watching another breakdown had him very definitely on edge.

Sydney's eyelashes fluttered. Without exactly meaning to, Sark moved closer, perched on the edge of the bed. Looking down at Bristow, he experienced a moment of acute self-condemnation. After two years in federal custody, what demented part of his brain had thought it wise to pick a supposedly dead CIA agent off the street? Especially this one.

The somewhat pathetic truth was that when it came down to it, he couldn't say no to the soaking wet, freezing cold woman who had asked for his help. There was almost certainly some kind of deep psychological trigger stemming from a childhood of being abused, then abandoned, shoved into an unsympathetic world at much too young an age—but Sark very rarely felt all that inclined to dwell on psychology. It was the worst of the sciences, taking the things one knew from common sense and combining it with things one never wanted to think about in the first place.

As she slowly drifted out of her forcefully induced sleep, Sydney murmured inaudibly. Then her eyes snapped open with startling abruptness. With one hand poised on the syringe, Sark leaned cautiously into her field of vision. "Are you awake—?" He nearly called her by name, but decided that might not be wise.

When Sydney gave him a look that as good as called him an idiot for asking that question, he suspected for the first time that it might actually turn out all right.

"Sark," she said flatly.

"Yes."

"Your hair is shorter."

_And you are the demented woman who had me at my wit's end last night._

"Though I believe my hairstyle is the least of our concerns at the moment, you are correct." He hesitated. "Might I ask how you're still alive?"

She wasn't looking at him. Sydney stared fixedly at the ceiling. She swallowed hard, and for the first time it occurred to Sark that this bout of lucidity was costing her a tremendous amount of effort. "I paid for a procedure," she said in a strained voice, "to erase my memories of the last two years."

"I . . . see." That hadn't answered his question, but he thought it unwise to bring that up for the time being.

"It didn't work," Sydney admitted unnecessarily. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "I should have known . . . it's very experimental. Until I saw you, almost everything was gone. The—" She gasped for a deep breath, and Sark's hand tightened on the syringe. "The familiar face . . . must have acted as a trigger, but . . . now everything's jumbled up, and I can't . . . can't remember . . ."

The words faded from her lips, and she began to shake, the tears beginning to pour down her cheeks.

"Miss Bristow," Sark said loudly, ignoring the twisting feeling in his gut. "Sydney."

"Do it," she choked. "Just—"

He paused with the tip of the needle resting against her skin. "Just what?"

"Promise me . . . that you'll help. Promise!" she repeated, vehement through her gritted teeth, reaching out blindly to grasp his forearm like a vise. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but a few tears had already escaped.

"I promise, Sydney." Good lord, her fingernails were long. He'd be lucky if she didn't draw blood.

He injected her and waited for the drug to take effect. Slowly, her grip on him went slack, and as her face smoothed into an impassive mask of sleep she spoke, so softly he had to lean close to hear.

"Liked your hair better . . . the other way . . ."

He shook his head and set the syringe on the bedside table. Leave it to Agent Bristow.

The sedative had worked its magic once again, but Sark couldn't help noticing his complete lack of any real progress. He had only a vague idea of what was going on, and no means whatsoever of dealing with it. Sydney being unconscious didn't exactly count as a victory, he mused, contemplating the five deep crescents dug into his skin. The sooner he could help fix her and be on his way, the better. As much as he hated to admit it, there was something profoundly disturbing about this version of Sydney so unlike herself.

What in the world had happened to the real Sydney Bristow, the inexplicably sentimental CIA agent with a chip on her shoulder and a real knack for turning men down without an ounce of tact? And what was the world coming to when he actually missed her?


	4. Chapter 4

Title by Jimi Hendrix, quote by Bob Dylan.

**IV. Castles Made of Sand**

_I wish I could write you a melody so plain that would  
hold you, dear lady, from going insane— that would ease you,  
and cool you, and cease the pain of your useless and pointless knowledge._

When Sydney woke up, she had no idea what time it was. She knew—and could verify, by looking at her arm—that she had been sedated multiple times since she had extracted from Sark a promise of his help. Shady memories of going to the bathroom, of being coaxed into eating, changing her clothes, of a warm washcloth wiped gently over her face—these lurked unobtrusively in her mind, but she knew better than to pursue them, or any other memory.

She had devised a system, even for those few waking moments, of focusing entirely on the present, taking in every detail of her surroundings. With her thoughts crammed full with the color of the walls, the pattern of the bedspread, the texture of the carpet, every single one of the few possessions Sark had brought to the hotel room . . . she left no space to think of the past.

Not that it worked. It didn't. She couldn't last five minutes without needing to be knocked out again. But it helped.

She sat up—or at least, that was the plan. Her brain seemed incapable of communicating that plan effectively to her body, so all she really accomplished was jerking over onto her side. Sark was next to the bed almost immediately, which some tiny, impotent scrap of her psyche found quite distressing.

"Vaughn," she whispered. Sydney's voice was ragged from disuse.

It was usually her first word after waking up—and a fair percentage of what she said in general—so Sark was less than surprised. That didn't mean he was any less sick of hearing it. "This may not come as a shock to you, but . . . as it happens, no," he informed her as nicely as he could manage.

"Vaughn," she repeated more desperately, and Sark had to roll his eyes. There were limits to his patience. Very inflexible limits, upon which Agent Bristow had been trampling in every one of her few waking moments.

"Sydney, I need you to listen to me. Vaughn is not here at the moment. I've given you a half-dose of the sedative."

"Why?"

Oh, the musical sound of a word passing her lips unrelated to her precious Agent Vaughn. "If we're lucky, it will keep you calm without putting you to sleep."

"And if we're not lucky?"

Fighting the urge to throw his hands in the air like a bad actress, Sark could feel his eyes widening with frustration. "The CIA will crumble and rivers will overflow and ten plagues will be visited upon Egypt. Miss Bristow, I don't _know._ It was entirely hypothetical. Figurative. Metaphorical." He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to breathe evenly. Julian Sark did not sleep well on the floor, and his temper and vocabulary were generally the first to suffer for it.

He took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling quickly. "I need you to read something, Miss Bristow. Can you do that?"

"I . . . think so."

"Excellent."

The 'something' he handed her was, in fact, a huge sheaf of papers. He'd been working on it nonstop for nearly a week, and it was as complete as it was ever going to be. Sydney stared at the stacks of handwritten sheets in disbelief. "You want me to read all of this?" she asked groggily.

"If you please."

"What . . ." As Sark helped prop her into a sitting position on the pillows, Sydney skimmed the first lines. "What _is_ this?"

"Your life. Everything I could get, arranged in—" he grunted at the exertion of lifting her "—chronological order."

"By hand."

"Any issues with my penmanship will have to be set aside for the time being," he told her. As he straightened up, his back cracked audibly.

Sydney stared at the first page, detailing her birth and early childhood, and then looked up at Sark with a remarkable amount of scorn for someone still so thoroughly drugged. "_This_ is your plan," she said, waving the papers in the air.

"You don't have to sound _quite_ so full of disbelief."

"Somehow," said Sydney, sounding almost exactly like her old self, "I just can't help it."

"Miss Bristow . . . it may have escaped your notice, but this is far from being my field of personal expertise. You asked for my help, which is what I am trying to provide. If, as you told me earlier, you are finding it difficult to assign an order to your memories, I believe—I hope—that this may be of use. Considering what you have already been through, you'll forgive me my reluctance to drag you to the nearest hypnotherapist for whatever rubbish they attempt to pass off as treatment. I wanted to try something less invasive first."

"Yeah," Sydney agreed in a thoroughly sarcastic, if bleary, tone. "And maybe later you can quiz me with flashcards."

Sark closed his eyes, swallowed, clenched his teeth. Considered counting to ten but discarded the idea. "Read it. I will be taking a shower." He picked out fresh clothes at random and shut the bathroom door with more force than necessary.

She was almost finished when he came out of the bathroom. When she was done with the last page, she flipped it all over and started again.

As much as it irritated her pride to admit it, the massive document was helpful. Very helpful, even. It was like being given a book of clues to putting together a puzzle with millions of pieces. Her task was still complicated, her memory still a fragmented mess, but she had the basic timeline down. Birth, childhood, mother's death, high school, college, SD-6, grad school, the CIA. Most of the people were tucked into their proper slots. She coached herself through it, calling up memories in order like a recitation.

Vaughn was always the sore spot, the topic from which her mind shied away. That, and her torture by the Covenant—not detailed, of course, in the account of her life Sark had created. The abduction she allowed herself to skip over. After all, that was what she'd been trying to forget in the first place. But Vaughn . . . she forced herself to remember everything, from their first meeting to the most hideous memory of all—returning to him, so desperate to assuage his grief and find comfort in his embrace . . . seeing that woman. Realizing, like a punch to the gut, that the man she thought was her soul mate would place himself willingly in the arms of another woman, merely nine months after Sydney's supposed death.

On her fourth perusal of the papers, she began to notice the alterations in handwriting. She became able to discern the neater print of when Sark began to write again from the messier scrawl evincing tedium and exhaustion. Looking at all the work he'd done, Sydney couldn't help feeling guilty. She looked up from the document, ready to apologize, and saw Sark in his usual chair, reading and drinking some very expensive-looking wine.

"Is something wrong?" he asked without taking his eyes off the book.

"No. Sark . . ." This time he did look up, his expression cool and indecipherable. "I'm sorry. Thank you for doing this."

"I take it you've found it to be of some use?"

"Yes, it is." Sydney actually smiled, albeit a little weakly. "I'm sorry. I was rude earlier."

His lips turned up at the corners, ever so slightly. "It's all right, Miss Bristow. I've certainly heard worse."

"Well, yeah," she acknowledged. "But usually you deserve it."

A soft bark of laughter escaped Sark. "It seems you're feeling better. Does this mean I won't have to purchase any more sedative?"

"I hope not." She bit her lip. "I think I'll take a shower now."

"Try not to fall and impale yourself on anything," he cautioned, sipping his wine. "My skills as a medic are nothing short of wretched."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The shower was absolutely heavenly, and she easily emptied the little complimentary bottles of shampoo and conditioner. After a brief hesitation, Sydney also appropriated what she assumed to be Sark's bar of soap. And a new one of the disposable razors and some shaving cream. Hey, he was one of the bad guys. Making use of his toiletries without permission was nothing compared to what many people in the CIA would like to do to him.

By the time she got out the mirror was completely fogged over. As she towel-dried her hair, she considered the situation with Sark.

She couldn't trust him. That would be beyond foolish. He had been part of the plot that had killed Francie and Dixon's wife, had almost killed Will. Sark had made it abundantly clear that his loyalty lay with absolutely no one. He might be helping her recuperate only to pawn her life to the highest bidder.

Somehow, though, Sydney didn't believe that. Oh, she was certain that he would find a way to twist things in his favor, but if he were planning to betray her it would certainly have been much simpler to do so when she was lying helpless in his bed. For now, it seemed most expedient to accept Sark's help and worry about the rest when she was in a better condition. Perhaps in a few days, with luck, she could be almost as good as new.

She was a little startled, on opening the bathroom door, to see Sark pulling back the covers from the side of the bed she hadn't been occupying. Even though it was, in fact, his room, Sydney was taken aback. "What are you doing?"

"I'm afraid, Miss Bristow, that my inability to tolerate the floor for another night means that you will no longer be sleeping alone."

"Oh."

"A more muted response than I expected," he said, sliding in between the sheets. He made a quiet noise of satisfaction as he settled onto the soft mattress. Sark was wearing a t-shirt and pants to bed, which somehow didn't surprise Sydney. Then again, she'd rarely seen him less than impeccably dressed.

Well, this was an unexpected complication. But not a big deal, she told herself. The bed was probably big enough for three people, so there was no reason to refuse to relinquish half of the space. It was practical and unexceptional and did not bring to mind any memories whatsoever of sleeping next to Vaughn. No. Setting her shoulders as if preparing for a fight, she got into the bed and made herself comfortable, steadfastly ignoring Sark's presence.

Until he spoke. "Interesting."

"What?"

"You sleep on your stomach."

"Sometimes," she replied, unsure of why she felt so defensive.

"Hm." Rather than explain, Sark reached over to the lamp and flicked the switch, instantly plunging the room into darkness. It would take a while for her eyes to adjust to the bit of faint outside light that circumvented the thick curtains, but Sydney didn't plan to be awake for that long. Despite the enforced unconsciousness—or perhaps because of it—she felt utterly drained.

"Sweet dreams, Miss Bristow."

"Shut up," she mumbled, burying her face in her pillow and willing herself to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

For what it's worth, I'm always appreciative of response, feedback, critique, etc. in the form of reviews. Many thanks to Rach2503 and Sailor Star8, the only people who done so. You guys made me a happy writer! :)

Title by the Monkees, quote by Coldplay.

**V. Early Morning Blues and Greens**

_When the tears come streaming down your face… when you lose something  
you can't replace… when you love someone, but it goes to waste… could it be worse?  
Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you._

Though most people found it disconcerting, Sydney had gotten used to waking up in a strange place years ago. That discomfort was something she had put behind her, like the effects of jet lag and the kick of an assault rifle. However, opening her eyes to find Sark studying her thoughtfully from less than two feet away . . . where he lay in the same bed . . . was really more than a career in the CIA had prepared her for.

Her first reaction was to shut her eyes. Then it occurred to her that if the 'I can't see you, so you can't see me' logic didn't work for toddlers, she probably wouldn't have much more success. Her next tactic was to go on the offensive. "What?" she asked as belligerently as she could manage first thing in the morning.

"You really are an extraordinarily beautiful woman, Sydney."

_Oh_.

Well . . .

_That_ wasn't what she'd been expecting.

Sark, somewhat to his own chagrin, meant every word. He'd woken up about twenty-five minutes earlier, and the traffic outside had prevented him from rolling over and going back to sleep, despite his best efforts. Without precisely meaning to, he'd found himself watching the CIA agent next to him. Asleep, she didn't look stern or businesslike or stubborn or passionate or any of the other words he typically associated with Sydney Bristow.

She looked . . . peaceful. Remarkably so.

And gorgeous, of course, but she would have to disguise herself as a seventy-year-old woman to avoid _that._ Her face was a fascinating study in contrasts, when examined at one's leisure, he discovered. Sharp lines of her cheekbones, jaw, and nose, set against the arch of her eyebrows and the curve of those full lips.

When Sydney said 'what?', his response came naturally. It was, after all, the truth. Besides, his morning lethargy made him atypically mellow.

Sydney, however, was unaware of all of this, and as she looked into his impenetrable blue eyes she was certain that she was being mocked. "Shove it, Sark," she growled, swinging her legs out from under the covers and stalking into the bathroom

"When can we get out of here?" she asked as soon as she emerged, arms crossed over her chest. Sark was still in the bed, looking reluctant to move.

Rather than answer, he countered with another question. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," she said in a curt tone that brooked no opposition.

"How nice for you." He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. "An honest answer, please, Miss Bristow."

She opened her mouth, closed it, and pressed her lips together in frustration. "I just want to get out of this damn hotel."

"I couldn't agree more," he replied, standing up and stretching his arms. "To that end, I suggest we relocate to my safehouse in Galway."

"We," Sydney repeated in a flat, deadly tone.

"Yes. Unless, of course, you feel that you no longer require assistance."

"I _feel_ that I no longer require yours."

"Really." His smirk was utterly humorless.

She sighed, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and tried to sound a little more placating. "I'm grateful for what you've done, Sark. I am. Even though I'm sure your only motive was to put me in the position of owing you a favor, I appreciate your help. But I think I've got it from here."

His lips thinned, but he nodded. "So what's the plan? Waltz back to the agency and say . . . what, exactly?"

Sydney was ready with an answer to that—and the second she opened her mouth, the answer vanished. What was she going to say? Well, obviously she'd tell them that the Alliance had taken . . . no. Not the Alliance, the . . . the . . . shit. She _knew_ the name. She knew it. The Alliance was gone; she'd help bring it down just a few months . . . a few _years_ ago. With Vaughn. Yes.

"Where are those pages?" she asked as haughtily as possible. "I'll take them with me."

"And here I thought you didn't need my help anymore. You can't even think of your story, can you?"

"I know what happened!"

"Then tell me," Sark challenged her. Watching her, he felt almost guilty—he knew she couldn't do it—but he had a point to prove. Besides, he hadn't the slightest intention of putting Sydney on a plane to Los Angeles before she managed to get her head on straight. Actually, he had no intention of putting her on a plane at all, certainly not alone—not if his nascent plan unfolded as he hoped it would.

Sydney glared at him, but he could see the panic behind the anger. "I know," she repeated stubbornly. "I just . . . I just can't . . ." Her fists clenched.

Then, unfortunately, she started to hyperventilate, which was _not_ part of his plan.

Fresh out of paper bags and good ideas, he opted for Plan C: grabbing her shoulders tightly. "Sydney! Sydney, look at me! Breathe!" Her eyes moved in the direction of his voice, but they were as hopelessly glazed as they had been the very first night. Her face conveyed the same expression of pure agony that had alarmed him then, and it was having the same effect now.

"Dad," she whimpered—which caught Sark's attention, because it wasn't 'Vaughn,' and that made it something of a novelty.

"Sydney, listen to me!"

It was as if he weren't there at all. Her mouth wavered, and then she let out a muffled wail, covering her face with her hands. At that point, Sark gave in to the inevitability of doing what he'd known would become necessary as soon as her breakdown began. There wasn't enough for a full dose, but he knew it would be enough to keep her unconscious—and, by corollary, breathing—for the time he needed.

"I'm sorry, Sydney," he murmured, brushing strands of long brown hair away from her face. "It seems you no longer have a choice in the matter."


	6. Chapter 6

Thanks, Friend9810, for the review!! :) I'm always a little worried I missed the Sarkney boat by 4 or 5 years, so it's nice to see there are still fans out there!

Title by Lily Allen, quote by Fall Out Boy.

**VI. Everything's Just Wonderful**

_I don't blame you for being you,  
but you can't blame me for hating it._

When Sydney woke up, she was starving. Her stomach felt ready to consume her from the inside out if she didn't feed it immediately. Even that sensation faded, however, upon her realization that the dusky blue walls and hardwood floor of the room were _not_ the accoutrements of a hotel. Judging by the light coming in from the window, it was sunset. That was about right—given the amount of time it would have taken to travel to Galway.

"That bastard," she growled, pushing away the covers.

Aside from grogginess left over from being drugged, nothing seemed terribly amiss. She did have a headache, the apparent result of a swollen, bruised spot on the back of her head, but she dismissed it without much thought. Injuries like that tended to happen when one's unconscious body was forcibly transported.

A single suitcase sat next to the cracked-open door, presumably full of the clothes Sark had purchased for her. God, how she missed having her own things around. Things that actually fit, things she actually liked. Well, honestly, most of that had been destroyed in the fire, but even as Julia Thorne she'd been able to accumulate a decent wardrobe. Now, nothing. Maybe after she beat the crap out of Sark for abducting her she would try to go shopping.

But first, food, her stomach insisted. She had to keep her priorities in order—and build up her strength, if she wanted to get out of here.

She left the room, and had to shake her head as she looked around from the landing of the stairs. Only Julian Sark would have a spacious two-story safehouse with impeccable decorating. It looked more like an expensive lodge than anything else. Operating on the assumption that the kitchen would be below, she went downstairs, scanning every inch of the interior for possible traps or surveillance. She saw none. The kitchen was easy to find.

When Sark walked in, he found her in the middle of consuming a massive sandwich that incorporated almost everything in the refrigerator as ingredients.

"Tell me, is there anything left?" he inquired, eyeing her meal.

Sydney harrumphed incoherently, swallowed, and took a breath. "Somehow I don't feel bad for eating the food of my kidnapper." She spat out the last word as an invective.

"Well, I could have left you unconscious in the hotel—or better yet, left you to the mercy of your little breakdown—but I didn't. I chose to bring you here. If that constitutes kidnapping, then so be it. I daresay you're better off here with me." He selected a bottle from the impressively large wine rack and opened a drawer for the corkscrew. "Care for a glass?"

"Sure," she muttered. She couldn't even count on alcohol to help her feel better about the situation. Years of drinking to blend in on ops had built up an absurdly high tolerance. You couldn't afford to be losing focus just because you had a few too many shots of vodka with Mr. Russian Mafia. It was great wine, though, not that she planned to admit that to Sark. Sydney returned to demolishing her monster of a sandwich. In retrospect, the addition of tuna might have been unwise.

She glanced up and realized that Sark was watching her. "Now what?" she snapped after swallowing her current mouthful.

"Aside from your . . . questionable eating habits, you seem to be all right. How do you manage that?" He sounded genuinely curious.

Sydney was tempted to be petty and refuse to answer. But, she realized with a sigh, it wasn't terribly likely that she'd have anyone else to talk to in the near future. One day she was going to track down the man who had performed the procedure, assuring her it was almost certain to work, and she was going to wring his neck. "I have to keep my thoughts in the present as much as possible. And when I do think about the past, I have to force myself to _stop_ thinking about it as soon as I get confused. Which doesn't take much," she concluded bitterly.

"When you say 'confused' . . ."

She gestured futilely with her hands before coming up with an example. "Sometimes I still think you work for Sloane."

"Ah."

"Who _are_ you working for?" Sydney asked, eyes narrowed. "Made any good connections in the world of international terrorism over the past two years?"

Sark raised an eyebrow. "Miss Bristow, I spent the last two years in prison."

"God, that's right." She ran a hand through her hair, clearly frustrated with herself. "Wait. How the hell did you get loose?"

He was silent long enough to let her know that it was deliberate, and that he had no intention of answering. The blue dress shirt, rolled up at the sleeves but still crisp and immaculate, made his eyes seem extra bright, muting the grey in them.

"Now then," said Sark, pouring himself a second glass of wine. "How do you propose we go about reconstructing your memories?"

Sydney polished off the last of her meal and licked a bit of mustard from her palm. "We shouldn't have to reconstruct anything, just re-organize what's already there. I don't think it'll be too difficult. I think most of the time it's my panic over not being able to remember things quickly that makes it impossible for me to remember anything at all."

"So there's nothing that has actually been lost."

"As far as I can tell. Like I said . . . more than anything, I think I'm just having glorified panic attacks."

"And you believe that once you sort out your confusion, the attacks will end?"

"Yes."

Sark rubbed his temple with two fingers. "Am I to understand that, aside from the unpleasant side effects, this procedure accomplished nothing?"

"Apparently, yes."

"Fantastic. You really thought someone could completely blot out just two years of your life?"

"It seemed reasonable at the time," was her clipped, steely response.

"Reasonable," he repeated. "Really. Were you partially lobotomized at some point in the last two years?"

"No," Sydney replied icily, looking him in the eye. "Just brainwashed. Or at least I would have been, if my father hadn't programmed me to be a spy when I was six years old. Now do you have any other stupid questions to ask, or are we through here?"

At a complete loss for words, Sark gestured that she was free to go. She was almost out of the kitchen when she turned back.

"Do you have any Tylenol or anything?"

"I believe so. Why?"

Without meaning to, she lifted a hand to the back of her head, not quite touching her hair. "I just . . . have a bit of a headache."

Something she couldn't understand passed over Sark's face. If she hadn't been so annoyed and eager to go, she might have pressed him for an explanation.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm _fine_," she snapped. "I just want to take something."

His mouth thinned into a tight line. "Try the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom."

"Thanks. And where are those papers? I'm not tired, so I'll read them over again for a few hours."

"On the table in the study. Down the hall and to the right," he replied. As Sydney walked away, he set aside the issue of her headache and tried to process what she'd just told him. When he'd found her alive, his first thought was that the CIA had faked her death to give her greater freedom in covert ops. But that wouldn't explain the state in which Sark had discovered her, or the fact that Michael Vaughn had remarried. His next thought was, of course, abduction. But how could she possibly have escaped that ordeal relatively unscathed?

This could be—and apparently was—the answer. Brainwashing, to make her identify with an enemy cause, or perhaps to make her believe that she was someone else entirely. But she had said that it didn't work . . . because of something her father had done when she was a child? All of a sudden, it hit him.

Project Christmas.

The reason Irina Derevko had been sent to America to marry Jack Bristow. A program aimed at identifying young children with the natural aptitude to become spies for the U.S. government. And what better child to use as a test of the fledgling program . . . than Sydney Bristow. To someone who had undergone the conditioning, brainwashing would be an empty threat. Assuming that prolonged physical and psychological torture can be considered an empty threat.

It was still speculation, he knew. But based on what Sydney had told him, he was willing to bet that he wasn't too far off the mark.

And maybe if he stopped putting his foot in his mouth and infuriating her, he would get the chance to ask her about it.

Assured of his solitude, Sark allowed himself a loud, exhausted sigh. He ran a hand over the short-cropped hair of which neither he nor Sydney was particularly fond. The long day—and all the days preceding it, since he found Sydney . . . and hell, even the two years before that, living in a cage . . . it was all wearing down on him, demanding that he collapse and sleep for a few months, at the very least.

First, though, he walked down the hall to the study. Technically, he had to walk past it to get to the master bedroom—he wasn't sure he liked having Sydney on another level of the house if she should have another panic attack, but had assumed she would prefer the distance. He stopped in the doorway of the study, relatively well-concealed in the shadows of the hallway. Sydney was facing away from him on the couch, illuminated by lamplight, head and shoulders bent over the documents. He had a feeling that if anyone could force their mind to cooperate just by reading, it would be her.

After a few more seconds, he turned away and headed farther down the hall.

"Good night, Sark."

He had to smile. Even in her current state, Bristow was unparalleled.

"Good night, Sydney."


	7. Chapter 7

Title by Paramore, quote by Matchbox Twenty.

**VII. Here We Go Again**

_I want you to be unleashed. I want you to remember.  
I want you to believe in me.  
I want you on my side._

Sydney stayed awake until almost four in the morning and didn't get out of bed the next day until almost noon, whereupon she stumbled into the shower and wondered how the hell she was going to get her sleep schedule back to normal. In a more frivolous part of her mind, she also wondered if Sark always kept the extra rooms so well stocked with fancy-looking European soap and shampoo. Probably. She resolved to keep an eye out for potpourri.

Her contentment over being well-rested and clean was short-lived; when Sydney returned to the bedroom, wrapped in a large white towel, she processed for the first time that the space next to the door was empty. When she'd closed the door earlier, the significance of this had escaped her. Now she realized that the suitcase containing all her clothing was nowhere to be found.

She was going to strangle the smug little bastard with her bare hands.

"Sark!" she bellowed, resisting the urge to take the steps two at a time. "Where are you?!"

Rather than answer, he emerged from the study with a leather-bound book in his hand. When he saw Sydney, a rare stunned expression flashed across his face before he more or less regained his look of unflappable calm. "Miss Bristow. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"What did you do with my clothes?" Sydney demanded.

Sark blinked once. Twice. It was a simple question, but it seemed to have thrown him for a loop. "I . . . washed them," he finally replied, "and folded them, and put them away."

Which meant that if she'd just checked the drawers before stomping off in a snit, Sydney could have avoided making a scene in the foyer of Sark's safehouse dressed in nothing but a damp towel. "You cleaned my clothes," she said in disbelief, tucking a piece of wet hair behind her ear.

"Yes."

"Oh." She couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye. "How . . . domestic of you."

An awkwardly prolonged pause followed in which Sark tugged on the cuff of his shirt. Sydney couldn't help noticing it, in her quest to look everywhere but into the storm-colored eyes she was certain were silently mocking her.

"Well," he finally said, in the strained, final tones of one determined to put an end to an uncomfortable situation, "if that was all . . ."

"Right— yeah. I'll be going," Sydney agreed hastily, and made her escape up the stairs.

Sark's eyes followed her—or more specifically, her legs—until she was once again out of sight. It was truly bizarre, having that woman around. This safehouse was one of his favorites, for reasons of nostalgia. Usually when he stayed at here, he appreciated a few stolen days of rest before being hired for yet another dangerous, illegal job. Though a trusted (and closely surveilled) employee maintained the entire house, no one else had ever made use of the spare rooms upstairs—until now.

It certainly made life more interesting.

He sighed softly and scratched the back of his neck. Sark had no use for self-deception, and he made it a policy to be completely honest with himself, even if he didn't particularly appreciate the truth. And the truth was that, for some reason, he actually enjoyed having Sydney around.

Rather than dissect the reasons behind this unsettling predilection, he opted to return to the safety of his study, to his favorite dark suede armchair and his copy of Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_.

Honesty was one thing. Self-immolation was entirely another.

About half an hour later, Sydney entered the room, more appropriately dressed in pants (the hems of which pooled on the floor) and a tank top. Her hair was still damp, and she still smelled of raspberries and soap, courtesy of her shower. To a lesser man, the scent might have been quite intoxicating. She had toast on a plate in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. Sark usually kept food out of the study, but he refrained from mentioning it.

"Hi," she said. The greeting, and the small smile she offered with it, were surprisingly meek. For her, at least.

His mouth curved slightly in response. It seemed they were starting the day over. "Hello, Sydney."

"Thanks for, um, doing my laundry."

"It wasn't any trouble." _Some of us do get out of bed before noon,_ he was tempted to add, but had no intention of starting an argument right now.

Sydney only nodded in response, and bit into her toast.

"Did you make any progress last night?" he asked.

"I think so," she replied after briefly considering the question. "It's kind of hard to tell."

Sark wasn't sure how to respond to that, but before he could formulate something acceptable, Sydney spoke again.

"It was the Covenant."

"I . . . beg your pardon?"

Her face was set in determined lines, as if she had to steel herself just to have this conversation. "The people who kidnapped me, the people who faked my death, the people who tried to brainwash me. It was the Covenant. They tried to make me believe I was this . . . person, this assassin. Julia Thorne."

"But it didn't work," said Sark. "And I'm sure that once you gained their trust, you lost no time in contacting the CIA."

"What makes you think I gained their trust?" Sydney asked, eyebrows raised.

He tilted his head and gave her a _let's-not-be-coy_ look. "Two years later, you're still alive. So . . . you contacted the CIA."

"Yes. I spoke to Kendall—"

"I don't suppose his disposition has improved."

"—and started to work with him," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. She gave him a rough outline of what had happened over the next fifteen months, ending in a very vague description of why she had chosen to her erase her memories. For the moment, he was uninclined to press the matter.

"And now here you are," he said with only a trace of skepticism.

"Here I am." She looked at him for a second or two and then half-smiled.

Rather than ask the question, he merely raised an eyebrow and waited for her to elucidate.

"I was thinking . . . do you remember the first time we met? In Denpasar? Trading diamonds for that ampule of Rambaldi solution?"

He laughed—a single, soft chuckle. "I'm unlikely to ever forget. Having the blade of a latajang directed at one's throat tends to focus one's attention wonderfully. Your proficiency was admirable, by the way. I had no idea it was you behind that veil."

"That was the general idea," she pointed out, sipping her tea. She wrapped her hands around the mug so her long fingers interlaced in the front. "The plan was to give you a fake ampule with a tracker and follow your movements. Instead, you were captured by SD-6."

"It was a clever trick, really," Sark mused. "Pity it all went wrong in the end, for both of us."

"Yeah." Staring off into space, Sydney smiled her real smile—wide and bright and dimpled. For a few surreal moments, Sark wasn't sure whether or not he was still breathing. "I don't know why I was even thinking about that," she admitted. "I guess it's just . . . looking back, it helps to remember all the little incidents. I keep thinking of it like a puzzle—I have to fit together all the pieces."

"Well, in that case . . . what was the next time we saw each other? Think of it as a memory exercise," he added when she gave him a dubious look.

It took a moment, but when she answered, she did so with confidence. "That restaurant in Paris." Sydney's eyebrows drew together. "You knew who I was then—didn't you?"

"I wasn't certain at first, even knowing the basics of the operation, but my suspicions were confirmed when you lingered so long over Khasinau." His own memory, blissfully unfragmented, called to mind Sydney's hand trailing across his shoulder and up his neck, her fingertips tracing the line of his jaw before moving on to Khasinau. The woman's talent for covert ops was nothing short of fantastic.

"And that," she said, voice harsh and forbidding, "was right before you abducted my friend and had him tortured." In moments like these, her features no longer mirrored the natural, self-assured shrewdness of her mother. The resemblance to Irina Derevko remained, but every muscle of Sydney's face displayed the implacable stoicism that was purely Jack Bristow. "And let's be clear on one thing, Sark. I may be accepting your help, and I might not be completely capable right now, but let me tell you this. The one thing I _will not_ forget is what you have done to the people I love."

"Sydney—"

"I will _never_ forgive you." She spoke over him effortlessly, and her dark eyes held nothing but absolute truth.

She watched him, waiting to gauge his response. He had listened to her with an expression she'd seen from him many times—eyes slightly narrowed, mouth set, his thoughts never betrayed by so much as a twitch. Finally, he gave that nod, more a tilt of his head than anything else. "But?" he prodded, because evil or no, he was a perceptive son of a bitch.

"But," Sydney acknowledged reluctantly, "I don't see any reason to make this . . . this temporary association any more unpleasant than it has to be. And as much as it bothers me to admit it, I could use your help right now, not to mention the place to stay. I mean . . ." She frowned and set the mug down next to the unfinished toast. "Call it pride, if you want," she conceded, "but I don't want to go back to the CIA anything less than whole."

Sark shrugged his eyebrows. "It's entirely your decision," he said, and she had no idea which part of the conversation he was referring to. The man was well on his way to redefining the word 'inscrutable.' "If it helps even the score between us, however . . ."

"What?" she asked, utterly suspicious, and was surprised to see a glint of humor in the steel blue of Sark's eyes.

"I believe our next encounter took place in a Siberian ice cavern."

And somehow, unbelievably, he had managed to drag levity back into their exchange. Sydney barely kept the corners of her mouth from turning up as she rolled her eyes and said, "Don't tell me this is about the ice pick! You were going to kill me!"

"No," he countered immediately. "I only said there was no room for you in the submersible, which to my mind is not _exactly_ provocation for putting a sharp object through my leg." By now, he had placed his book on the table between his chair and her couch and forgotten about it.

"Well, sorry if my injuring you threw off your _machine gun fire_!" Sydney exclaimed in disbelief.

His retort was cut off by a loud buzz emanating from the small spare bedroom he had converted into a room full of monitors. Someone was at the gate.

"Excuse me," he told Sydney, and went out into the hall. He unlocked the room and closed the door behind him. It was really very unfortunate timing, he reflected, because the next time he and Sydney had crossed paths was in the library in Moscow. When she'd told him he was 'cute.'

A cursory examination of the screens revealed no activity other than the green sedan waiting at the front gate. He switched the feed to the camera pointed right at the driver . . . and suppressed a groan with the ease of long practice. This could get very complicated very quickly. He pressed the intercom.

"Just a moment."

"_You got it, pal,_" was the upbeat reply.

He re-entered the study with a tense singularity of purpose that immediately set Sydney on edge. "What is it?" she asked.

"Cole. Get in the wine cellar."

"What?!"

"There's a door to the right of the kitchen entrance." Sark collected her mug and plate and left the room so quickly she had to bolt after him. "There," he said shortly, pointing to the wine cellar door. "Lock it behind you." He threw the toast into the trash can and poured the rest of her tea into the sink, where he left the dishes. "Sydney!" he snapped when he turned around and saw she was still there. "There is no time! _Get in_ the wine cellar, _now_!"

There was no time to argue, so she obeyed, hoping that she wasn't making the biggest mistake of her life. Sark's last words to her before he went to the control room to open the gates were "There's a loaded 9mm under the third stair from the bottom." To a more normal person, this might have been even more cause for alarm, but Sydney found it immensely comforting. The first thing she did after locking the door was pry out the gun and check the clip.

Waiting there in the dark was nerve-wracking. She hadn't felt so much adrenaline in quite a while.

Cole entered the building just a few minutes later. Thanks to the poor soundproofing of old houses, she could hear everything. "Mr. Sark!"

"McKenas Cole," Sark replied. It was impossible to tell that he'd been frantically—or at least hurriedly—concealing Sydney's presence prior to this conversation. He sounded, as always, calm and collected.

Cole, who wouldn't know calm and collected if they shot him at point-blank range, was less reserved. "Your hair, man!" he enthused. "That's _cool_!"

"I prefer not to receive visitors to my safehouses, for reasons of concealment," Sark told him. "A fact of which I'm sure you are aware. Would you mind telling me what warranted the intrusion?"

"Yeah, yeah! Mind if I sit down somewhere?"

"At the counter should suffice," said Sark. It wasn't until Sydney heard the familiar frosty tone in his voice that she realized how relatively relaxed he had been with her less than five minute earlier. This put an uncomfortably squidgy feeling in her stomach, so she used her expert compartmentalization to shove it firmly away.

"All right, man, whatever you say." She heard one of the kitchen stools scrape across the floor.

"Champagne?"

"Right on!" For a violent man who'd been more than a little unhinged by his ordeal in Russia, Cole sure could sound like a teenager when he was of a mind to. "So about why I'm here. You're probably wondering how you got sprung outta prison, right? Courtesy of the big C, my friend—your kind benefactors."

Sydney clutched the gun so tightly her hand ached. She felt like she was going to throw up.

"You're the man behind the Covenant," Sark hazarded.

"I'm the man in _front_ of the man," Cole corrected him, and Sydney thought that if she heard him call another superior "the man" she would have to hunt him down and kill him just for his spectacular lack of creativity. And that whole champagne-bottle-backwash incident. Disgusting. "When'd you cut your hair?" he asked Sark, hopping topics again.

"It wasn't a matter of choice. I was in US custody—as I thought you were. When were you released?"

"That's a good story," acknowledged Cole, then followed it up with: "To your hair!" Sydney could only assume he was proposing a toast. Deranged little freak. "I'll be the seniormost Covenant representative that you'll be dealing with," he continued. "Anything you have to say to the big boss, you can say to me."

"And what, exactly, would I have to say to the . . . big boss?"

"Well, y'see, we've got a bit of a business proposition for you, Mr. Sark. You've always been up for grabbing a piece of the action, and Covenant could really use that eight hundred million dollars that just got tossed your way. Congrats on that," Cole added, as a sidenote. "If you're gonna have an absent parent, they oughta at least leave you a couple hundred mil when they kick it, right?"

Sark said nothing. She couldn't tell, of course, if he was actually speechless or just responding with a gesture or facial expression.

"It's amazing, the stuff I know, isn't it?" gloated Cole. The man was an archetypal slimeball. "I mean, also, just for another example . . . and I think a lot of it's in the details, don't you? Just little things. Details like— like this hair, here on the counter. Now, if you ask me, it's a little too—I don't know. Long? Brown? To be yours. Kinda makes you wonder."

"I—I have neither the time nor the inclination to sit here and—"

"Julian, don't do that. I can see right now that you're scared, but you don't need to be scared of me. In fact," Cole added, "I have a present for you." Sydney was so intrigued by the notion of Sark actually showing fear that she was barely paying attention to the rest, but her good training prevailed.

". . . A watch," Sark said flatly.

"Not just any watch, my friend. This watch—" He paused, and she imagined him tapping it for emphasis. "—is worn by the six cell leaders of the Covenant. But you see, we're looking to expand, spread our boundaries, that sort of thing. New territory. And _you_ are gonna head up our new North American cell."

She could have sworn she heard Sark snicker, but the arrogant expression she pictured was probably dead-on. "That sounds just about right."

"You're cockier than _I_ am. I love that about you," Cole told him.

"Pardon my being blunt," said Sark, "but I believe that what you love about me is my eight hundred million dollars."

Rather than sound offended, Cole seemed even more cheerful. "Every little bit helps! So, whaddaya say, Mr. Sark? You in?"

_Yeah, Sark_, Sydney thought grimly, pulling back the action with a crisp double-snap. _Tell us. Whaddaya say?_


	8. Chapter 8

Title by Lordi, quote by Dostoevsky.

**VIII. It Snows in Hell**

_As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are  
much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose.  
And we ourselves are, too.  
_

"I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully decline."

Sydney exhaled in a gust, more relieved than she would have liked to admit.

"At least, I cannot accept the full extent of your offer."

And there it was again, a tense knot running straight from her chest to her trigger finger. Shit. That stupid, traitorous, manipulative . . .

"I'm not interested in becoming anyone's operative at the moment. I realize I have held certain alliances in the past—none of which were ultimately profitable for me. Quite frankly, I've had enough. I plan to return to doing what I know best. I trust that won't be a problem." Before Cole could say anything—most likely that it was, in fact, a problem—he kept speaking. "Now, if the Covenant would like to hire me in that capacity, I would be more than happy to oblige."

"I don't think you really get what I'm saying here, Julian." Cole's half-manic cheer was fading, replaced by a sheen of menace.

"Really," said Sark. "It might interest you to know that I'm still willing to part with a portion of the money, if necessary. Consider it . . . an insurance investment."

In the long silence that followed, Sydney assumed that Cole was considering the veracity of Sark's words. He would be a fool not to accept it. Being paid millions of dollars to avoid an extended working relationship with Sark was sort of like being given chocolate fudge ice cream in exchange for not throwing yourself into a snake pit. No matter how nice the bastard could be when he tried, or how appealingly messy his hair used to be when bits were always sticking up.

"We'll be in touch," Cole finally told him, and his stool scooted across the floor again as he stood. "And also—just, man to man, you know—might want to be more careful bringin' the ladies to your little fortress here. Never know when one might spill the beans. Hey, have a nice day!"

"Cole."

"Yeah?"

"Recall for a moment that I'm not a child, and kindly remove the bugs you planted on the counter, the clock and the door."

"Sure thing, buddy," Cole replied without missing a beat, but Sydney could hear the frustration in his voice and it secretly delighted her.

She didn't even consider loosening her death grip on the gun until she heard the front door shut and lock. "It's safe," Sark called out about a minute later.

_Said the spider to the fly_, Sydney thought, but still slid back the deadbolt and emerged.

When she looked at Sark, who was leaning against the counter next to the sink, looking rather haggard, something very strange happened. She found herself possessed of the sudden urge to kiss him. Sydney could even picture herself doing it—she would walk over, put her hands on his waist, and . . .

This was insane. Like that time she'd decided to kiss Will. Maybe it hadn't been the tequila at all—maybe it was something about kitchens. That was where Will and Francie had first kissed too, wasn't it? And where she and Vaughn had been when they'd decided to . . . reheat. It wasn't a theory entirely without merit, she decided. The only bad thing was that available data only argued for the aphrodesiacal magic of _her_ old kitchen, but the phenomenon could be widespread.

And if nothing else, Sydney realized with a feeling of genuine accomplishment, she had perfectly recalled every single one of those incidents.

"You do realize you're still holding the gun."

As if her brief mental foray into the realms of the bizarre and ridiculous had never occurred, Sydney was back to normal. "It seemed like a reasonable precaution," she replied, but went back down the stairs to put it back, wondering if it might not be wiser to keep it and hide it under her pillow.

While she was gone, Sark shook his head quickly and stood up straight, determined to compose himself. It had taken Cole's visit for him to realize how much he had allowed his normal demeanor to slip around her, and with that had come the realization that—to be honest—he didn't particularly care. But he had no intention of really dropping his guard. All else aside, she was still Sydney Bristow, and she was not a woman to be underestimated.

Her first words to him after she closed the door to the wine cellar were predictable. "Why didn't you take the job?"

"As I said," he told her, spreading his hands in a calculated gesture of openness, "I'm not interested in becoming anyone's lackey for the moment."

"And you're willing to pay _eight hundred million dollars_ to avoid that."

"I offered only a part of that money to Cole," he corrected. "Also, Sydney, you may have noticed that I'm not exactly destitute, with or without the entirety my inheritance. If the Covenant requires a substantial payoff to be kept out of my affairs, then so be it."

She crossed her arms across her chest and studied him through narrowed eyes. "There's got to be some other reason."

"Several, actually," he confirmed, just to drive her crazy. From the way she squared her shoulders, Sark knew she was accepting the challenge.

"I'm sure one of the reasons has to do with why you're helping me," Sydney guessed, watching him intently for confirmation. "Whether it's that you want me to owe you a favor or . . . whatever else you've got planned."

He nodded. That one was easy. He was, however, entirely confident that his distaste for his father's money would not occur to her; he wasn't stupid enough to refuse such a substantial inheritance, but it didn't exactly break his heart to part with a portion of the gold intended to buy his affection. Nor was Sydney likely to deduce the unshakeable sense of discomfort he felt at the idea of working for the organization that had attempted to brainwash her.

Yes, he had had people tortured—including that friend of hers, Will Tippin (though, in Sark's opinion, it was the reporter's own damn fault for claiming to know about the Circumference in the first place). But there was something . . . _almost_ clean-cut about torture, he thought. You need information and you need it now, so you hire the right people and you get it done. And that's the end of it. Cruelty, certainly, but cruelty of necessity. He knew many people who would agree—Jack Bristow among them.

But if torture was about breaking a person, bringing them to a point where they will disclose whatever information you want . . . then brainwashing was about shattering them utterly. There was no stopping point, no moment at which one became concerned about irreparable damage—because irreparable damage was the entire goal. There was no mercy. And what the Covenant must have done to Sydney, so resistant to their methods, before she realized it would be best to play along . . .

Well, even a reputed sociopath has to draw the line somewhere.

Rather than admit defeat, Sydney began rummaging through the bread drawer until she had procured two slices of bread.

"What are you doing?" Sark asked, only mildly curious. For the most part, he just wanted to think about something more mundane.

"Making toast," she said, sliding the bread into the toaster, in a tone that implied _Obviously. _ _And you call yourself a criminal mastermind._ "Since you threw mine in the garbage, and believe it or not, I'm still hungry. Will you get out the butter? And do you have any jam?"

"You know, Sydney . . . at the risk of being overly 'domestic' . . . I could make some _actual_ food," he offered, managing to sound simultaneously cautious and condescending.

"Make it for dinner," she said, and gave him one of her more low-grade defiant looks.

Sark managed to shrug without moving his shoulders, a skill Sydney secretly envied. "Merely a suggestion."

She took the requested jam from his hand without comment, but as she turned back to face the toaster, her shoulders jerked down in a way that suggested the last straw of patience already worn thin. "Isn't this _weird_ to you?" she demanded, rounding on him.

When his eyes flicked down to the jar of strawberry jam in her hand, Sydney made a noise indicative of great exasperation. "Not _this_," she said, putting the jar on the counter with a thunk. "_This_!" She gestured in a way that encompassed the entirety of the situation. "Me, standing in your kitchen making toast! And you're offering to make _dinner_ for me? And you washed my clothes, for god's sake—this is just—"

"Sydney."

"_What_?!"

"I realize that we've been enemies in the past more often than not, so I can understand your being uncomfortable, but right now, we _are_ on the same side. As for the rest . . ." This time when he shrugged, he used his shoulders. "I suppose one doesn't generally picture one's adversaries engaged in the more mundane aspects of everyday life, but it does happen. I make dinner, Sydney, and I clean laundry. To hire someone else to do so would be an unconscionable breach in the security of my operation."

"But it _is_ weird, isn't it? I mean, the two of us just . . . _living_ together, like . . ." _like Will and Francie and I used to._

One corner of Sark's mouth curved up. "Yes, I suppose it is."

For him, 'weird' didn't even begin to cover seeing Sydney Bristow in a towel, but it would suffice until he came up with a more comprehensive term. He understood what she was getting at, though. They had argued, fought, outwitted each other, and even—rarely—cooperated, but this . . . living under the same roof, sharing meals and furniture as if they were friends, rather than Julian Sark and Agent Bristow . . . he still hadn't adjusted to that, and he could only assume that Sydney was finding it even more disconcerting.

The toast popped up with an enthusiastic _ding!_ that seemed jarringly loud. As Sydney turned and pried the lid from the jam jar, she spoke. "I don't suppose any of the windows in the house open." Her tone was flawlessly casual, but he wasn't an idiot.

"No, they don't," he replied. "I'm sure by now you've tried the doors—without any success, I dare say."

"Yes." Even from behind, Sark could see the irritated set of her jaw. "And you _honestly_ expect me to believe we're on the same side?"

"In a sense."

"What sense would that be?" Sydney snapped, half-turning her head.

"We both have something to gain from our current cooperation. Surely you can see that."

_Of course I can. And don't call me Shirley._ It was the kind of dumb joke Will would have made. God, she missed him. What would he say if he knew she was standing less than five feet away from that little British cocky son of a bitch, doing nothing more violent with her knife than spreading jam on toast?

Cursing herself for not thinking of it earlier, she unobtrusively examined the butter knife's serrated edge.

"Sydney, please. I realize there's no love lost between us, but that's no reason to underestimate my intelligence."

After hefting the weight of the knife experimentally in her fingers, too briefly for Sark to react, Sydney whirled around and sent it flying through the air with a practiced flick of her wrist. It hit its target precisely, clanging into the bottom of the sink, but she had the—admittedly juvenile—satisfaction of seeing Sark flinch.

"Are you quite through?" he asked, crossing his arms and cocking his head like a parent waiting for the end of a tantrum.

"Don't bet on it," muttered Sydney. She seized her plate and headed for the door. Sark, of course, followed.

"On the subject of laundry," he began, then waited until Sydney's noncommittal grunt indicated she was at least listening. "I've made a few inquiries through back channels, all anonymous. I must admit it was the most bizarre negotiation I've ever attempted, but . . . it appears I've managed to obtain the bulk of Julia Thorne's clothing. You should have it shortly, if all goes well."

A thousand questions sprang to Sydney's mind, along with a strong desire to laugh at the idea of Sark getting womens' clothing on the black market.

She turned to face him. "You bought . . ."

Then it clicked.

"Wait."

She could feel the chill run up her spine before pooling in her eyes. "I didn't give you that name until this morning. How the _hell_ did you know?"

Predictably, he smirked. "As I said, Sydney. There's no reason to underestimate my intelligence. Enjoy your toast."


	9. Chapter 9

Title by Rob Thomas, quote by Hafiz.

**IX. Give Me the Meltdown**

_I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness,  
the astonishing light of your own being._

It was nearly eight o'clock that night before they exchanged words again—and then only because Sark appeared unbidden in the doorway of Sydney's room.

"If I tell you I knew because you mentioned the name Julia Thorne the night I found you, will you stop sulking?"

Sydney opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, knowing that her instinctive _I'm not sulking_ would only sound petulant. "I don't remember that," was her more guarded response. She set down the paper in her hands—she was reviewing a chronological list of courses she'd taken in college. Boring, but she made it into a challenge by trying to remember as many teachers and classmates as she could.

"Yes, well, I imagine that was one of the less remarkable parts of _your_ evening," said Sark. "To me, however, it was intriguing. My contacts were able to provide information on Julia Thorne, including her recent disappearance. A picture of Julia was all I needed to confirm my suspicions."

"A picture," she repeated, eyes narrowed.

"You don't believe me."

"The Covenant is _very_ thorough. As soon as I left a location, there was no trace of my having been there."

"Thorough, perhaps. But no system is without flaw, Sydney, as you should know." He couldn't tell if she accepted his explanation, but she seemed unwilling to pursue the topic further. That was fine by him. Sark was fairly certain that the less said about that picture, the better.

"Is that all?" she asked pointedly.

"No, actually." He lifted his chin slightly. "As promised, I've made dinner."

Sydney looked back down at the papers spread across the bed, clearly considering skipping the meal, then sighed and swung her legs around to place her feet on the hardwood floor. "Is it just me, or do we only interact when there's food involved?" she asked, pushing her arms through the sleeves of a sweater.

"It does seem to be a bit of a trend. Are you cold?"

"Huh?" Her eyes were wide with surprise. "No, I just . . . I'm fine." She hated it when Sark did that—acted concerned about her. He would probably have no qualms about putting a bullet through her head if she wasn't part of whatever he was planning. What the hell did he care if she was cold?

As she walked past him in the doorway, Sydney was unnerved by the warmth she could feel emanating from Sark's body. Somehow in her mind she'd always pictured him projecting, if anything, a chill. He also smelled very faintly of something she couldn't quite place, but she had no intention of pursuing that train of thought. "What's for dinner?" she asked him as they proceeded down the stairs.

"Linguine pescatore, and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc."

"Do you ever just drink beer?" Sydney wondered, half-smiling at the idea of him with a six-pack of Heineken.

"Not if I can possibly avoid it," he replied with predictable distaste.

They sat down at the dining room table, facing each other. Looking at her plate, she found herself grateful that he hadn't lit candles or anything like that. It would have just been too bizarre. Utilizing the logic that the faster she ate, the faster she could leave, Sydney picked up her fork and twirled some pasta around it. Vaughn had always been awful at that, she remembered with a sharp pang. He ended up with noodles hanging out of his mouth every time.

Across the table, Sark found himself grappling with the unfamiliar and unsettling desire to be someone else. Someone, more specifically, who was capable of making Sydney forget, even for a moment, what had happened to her. The nature of their arrangement was entirely too fragile to risk her contacting anyone on the outside, and he was acutely aware that providing emotional support was, to put it lightly, not one of his strengths.

Give him an actual job to do and he would accomplish it in record time. Give him a damaged, grieving Sydney Bristow and he was at a complete loss.

So really, perhaps all he actually needed was someone to shoot.

It wasn't as if he had any great talent for empathy, Sark mused, idly poking at bits of cod. Quite the opposite, in fact. But still . . . it was difficult to shake the feeling that something was utterly _wrong_ with the universe if Sydney was not her usual self. He almost wanted her to escape, to make her way back to the CIA and Jack Bristow and Michael Vaughn, just to prove that the change in her was not irrevocable.

He felt as he imagined Professor Moriarty would feel upon receiving news of Sherlock Holmes' retirement. What would be the point in carrying on with one's activities, in continuing a life of crime, when there was no longer a worthy adversary able to make that life interesting?

But she would recover, he told himself, pushing aside his pessimism. She had to.

"This is delicious," Sydney commented—only a little grudgingly—as she took a sip of wine.

"I'm glad."

He looked, she thought, about as glad as her father would have looked while expressing the same sentiment.

_Ugh._ Her mind seemed to have a gift for prodding at the sorest of subjects when her guard was down. And judging by Sark's expression, it showed on her face.

"Is something wrong?"

Not the concerned act. Not again. "It's nothing," she lied briskly. But she knew Sark wasn't likely to accept the blatant falsehood, and talking about it seemed at least marginally better than thinking about it. "Just . . . my dad. I need to get him out of prison, but . . . I have no idea how," she admitted, eyes glued to the napkin she was twisting in her lap. "I don't even know how I'll be able to go back, when I—" Shit. Now she was getting all choked up.

"Sydney." Against her better judgment, she looked up. She hated the gentle look on his face, because it made her want to cry even more, and for Christ's sake, Julian Sark was not _gentle._ "Perhaps it would be best if you focused your energy on recuperating for now."

"But—"

"The rest can come later," he told her. She'd never realized his voice could be so soothing.

She pressed her lips together in an attempt at stoicism, but Sydney could feel her face crumpling. A warm tear shot down her cheek, and—without thinking, almost without meaning to at all—she reached across the table and grabbed Sark's hand, nearly knocking over her glass in the process.

His fingers held on tightly to hers. She found herself intensely grateful for the gesture of kindness she had no right to expect. Not from him.

Sark's eyes searched her face, but he said nothing. Sydney took deep, shaking breaths, wiping her face with her other hand, until she'd regained most of her composure. "Thank you," she whispered, looking at their hands joined in the middle of the table. She couldn't bear to look at his face just then. As she watched, Sark's thumb moved, stroking side to side against the back of her hand.

"It's all right, Sydney." His voice was low and intimate. It reminded Sydney of who she was.

She pulled back her hand.

"I don't suppose you know any good jokes." She forced her mouth into the shape of a smile, but another tear slid from her eye. Damn traitor.

"I'm afraid not. However," Sark continued, "I was wondering if you might oblige me with a story."

Sydney regarded him mutely, confused.

"This isn't the first time Cole and I have crossed paths. Years ago—when we were both working for your mother—he shared an interesting anecdote about his time at SD-6. He told me that you threatened to, I believe—"

"Break his kneecaps," she finished. The noise Sydney made was caught between a laugh and a sob, but her smile was genuine.

"Yes. Would you mind telling me how that came about, exactly?"

"I honestly don't remember," she said, looking away from the table with the same small grin on her face. "I'm sure he deserved it, but it was a long time ago."

"And doubtless he wasn't the only one vying for your affections," Sark baited her, half-serious.

She actually laughed a little at that. "Oh, yes, believe me, they were all just _lining up_ for a chance with me, every man at SD-6."

_I wouldn't blame them._ The thought almost escaped his lips, but he didn't want to ruin Sydney's lightening mood. "I believe Mr. Flinkman harbored a certain degree of fondness for you," he told her instead.

"Marshall?" she said, expressing disbelief even as her eyes lit up at the memory of her old friend. "Nah."

"I would beg to differ," Sark countered. The corners of his mouth were curving up almost of their own accord.

"I don't know. Maybe a little crush. But now he's . . . god, I wonder if he's still with Carrie?"

"Carrie?"

"They just started going out before I—before I was taken."

"I could find out for you, if you like," he offered, and regretted it immediately as Sydney's guard came up again.

"It's all right," she said. "I'm sure I'll see them soon."

The message was clear. She didn't want him anywhere near the people she cared about, now or ever. Sark felt as if he'd just been physically pushed away.

This business of cheering someone up was a damn sight harder than he'd expected.

"Sark. What was your father like?"

Sydney saw the tendons in Sark's neck stand out as he tensed, swallowed. His eyes were wary.

"I'm just asking because I heard Cole mention that he died," she explained, watching his reaction carefully. "Were you . . . close?"

A quiet scoff vibrated Sark's throat. "Hardly."

"Oh." The single syllable was barely audible. She was quickly starting to regret ever broaching the topic.

He sighed so quietly she didn't even hear it; she just saw the slight fall of his shoulders as he exhaled. "My relationship with my father has always been . . . virtually nonexistent, to be blunt. He abandoned me when I was a child, whereupon I was sent to a boarding school in London. The vague memory I have of him, he was physically abusive. Shortly after my escape from federal custody, I learned of his assassination, and my subsequent inheritance."

She had no idea how to react when Sark said it so calmly, looking her dead in the eye with his most impenetrable expression.

"Do you have any idea who killed him?"

"Yes." His eyes caught the light and gleamed. "I have reason to believe it was the Covenant."

Sydney fought the urge to bolt from her chair, or be sick, or both. "Sark . . . who was your father?"

"Andrian Lazarey."

Shit, shit, _shit._

"You're right," she said. She knew her heart wasn't actually lodged in her throat, but that was how it felt. "It was the Covenant."

"How can you be so certain?" His eyes were narrowed—maybe in thought, maybe in amusement. Hell, maybe he was about to rip out her throat.

"I . . . the assignment was almost given to me," Sydney explained, forcing her voice to be even. "It was, actually, but then something came up . . . I had to leave for Thailand, and they gave the job to someone else. A lower-level operative, I think."

Sark steepled his fingers and nodded in acknowledgment of her explanation. "I intend to find out who it was—if only to satisfy my own curiosity."

"Do you have any leads?"

"A few," he replied cagily, effectively terminating the discussion.

She cast about mentally for something else to talk about, and landed on an unlikely possibility. "So . . . this means I know your name," she realized, not without a touch of triumph. "Or at least the middle and end of it—if your last name is Lazarey, and your patronymic would be Andrianovich . . . what about Julian? Is that really your first name, or did you make it up?"

Sark just barely smiled. "It's real."

"Julian Andrianovich Lazarey," she said, trying out the entire name to see how it sounded. It was nice, she decided. A mouthful, compared to Sark, but nice.

"My admiration for your powers of deduction notwithstanding, I would rather you continue to call me Sark."

"How about Julian?"

Sydney had absolutely no idea why she asked. It was as if the words had slid from her tongue with no input whatsoever from conscious thought. She nervously tucked the left side of her hair behind her ear while she waited for him to finish chewing his forkful of linguini. Even as he did so, his eyes—almost entirely grey in this light—were dissecting her with a gaze so probingly intense it felt almost like a corporeal touch.

He swallowed, and sipped his wine. "All right," he finally replied. "If you wish."

The remainder of the meal passed in silence. Sydney felt too self-conscious to speak again, and she assumed Sark remained quiet for reasons of his own. When they were done eating—as she silently lamented being too full to eat more of the delicious sliced baguette—they cleared the table and took the dishes into the kitchen, still without a word between them. She rinsed the plates in the sink, and Sark loaded the dishwasher.

"Sark," she said, breaking the silence at last. He looked at her, his expression unsurprisingly blank. "I'm sorry about your father."

"There's no need to extend condolences."

"I know." She searched his young, beautiful face for a trace of the little boy for whom life had been so heart-wrenchingly cruel, but saw only the man he had grown up to become. "I think that's the reason I'm sorry," she murmured, and hoped he would understand.

"Sydney—" he began.

He didn't get any farther than that, because she kissed him.

Not a comforting kiss, not a peck on the cheek. No, there was no explaining this away. Her fingers had a firm grip on the back of Sark's head, and without exactly intending to Sydney had pushed him back against the counter. She hadn't expected his lips to be quite so soft, insofar as she'd expected anything, and good _god,_ was that his tongue? Yes, it certainly was. The hands on her back were gentle, almost tentative.

The situation had quickly come to a head. Either she was going to release the moan building in her throat, or she was going to step back.

Sydney stepped back.

The look on Sark's face momentarily stunned her. She had never seen him display so much raw emotion—shock, lust, fascination, and was it . . . awe? Even as she tried to decipher the expression, he was doing his best to conceal it. At the moment, his best wasn't quite up to the task.

She had to go. She knew that. Because if she didn't, she would have to explain why she had kissed Julian Sark, and she had _no fucking idea._

"Good night," she said.

"Good night, Sydney." It sounded a little bit like Sark was choking.

_Goddamn kitchens,_ Sydney seethed, practically fleeing to the safety of her room. _Every single time._

It wasn't until she was up the stairs and her door snapped shut that Sark finally released his death grip on the counter and took a deep, shuddering breath.


	10. Chapter 10

Title by Gym Class Heroes, quote by Sark!

**X. It's Okay, But Just This Once**

_Well, then.  
It appears we have a predicament._

As Sark watched the pink glow of sunrise suffuse the yard of his safehouse, he sincerely wondered if a single night was sufficient time for a person to lapse into unmitigated madness. He wouldn't have thought so before. He'd always assumed—on the rare occasions it crossed his mind—that the road to madness was long, with many a winding turn. Paved with good intentions. Marked by a great deal of angsting and wailing and knashing of teeth.

In short, a road that any non-psychotic with an ounce of sense and a healthy detachment could steer well clear of.

That, however, was before last night. Before he'd been left alone for nearly ten hours with disquieting thoughts and even more disquieting dreams.

Sark took a deep breath. He was overreacting. Understandable, considering the stress of the whole situation, his lack of sleep the night before, and having had his tongue in Sydney Bristow's mouth oh fuck for christ's sake what was the matter with him. However, there was no reason become unhinged and compromise his objectives simply because of a minor complication.

Furthermore, it was foolish to attribute a depth of motive to someone dealing with as much turmoil as Sydney was handling at the moment. The fact that he had wanted her for years was, logistically speaking, immaterial. There was, he reminded himself, a hair's-breadth difference between wanting something and actually wanting to have it. In less than a month, if all went well, the deal would be completed and their association would come to its inevitable conclusion.

That settled, Sark covered his eyes with one hand and muttered some of his favorite Russian profanities. He was still muttering when his cell phone rang.

He checked the Caller ID and quickly dredged up his knowledge of Swedish. "Hallå."

"_Hallå, Herr Svensson! Din fälten är här_."

"Tak själv," he replied. "Jag kommer att vara där snart."

Well, this would be an interesting test, Sark mused as he examined his closet for clothes to fit his alias. He had never left Sydney alone in the house before, and though he knew every precaution would be in place, he still half expected her to cough up some C-4 the moment he was gone and blow half the house to kingdom come to make her escape. Professional paranoia, he knew, but it had come in handy countless times before.

In the end, though, there was really nothing for it. There was no way in hell that he was going to let her leave the house at this stage.

As an afterthought, he took down a small velvet box and slid a silver band onto his left ring finger.

He locked his bedroom, the study, and the wine cellar. Though he'd moved the 9mm under the stairs as soon as its location had been compromised, there were other, far more interesting weapons to be found down there, and Sark had no intention of allowing Sydney to get her hands on any of them. The other guns in the house—such as the modified pump-action shotgun above the stove—were locked up and secure.

Olaf Svensson arrived at the docks about half an hour later. His primary local transporter was waiting by the boat, a broad smile on his tanned and weathered face. Tuning out the man's enthusiastic greetings for his rich and reclusive friend Olaf, Sark examined the boxes with a critical eye before nodding approvingly and allowing them to be loaded into the back of his car—an SUV, rather than one of his beloved Mercedes.

"Vad är det?" the man asked, grunting as he lifted the weight of the cargo.

Sark—or, rather, Olaf—shrugged. "En överranskning att min hustru," he replied with a grin and a conspiratorial wink.

"Jag kan uppfylla denna kvinna?"

After taking a moment to consider Sydney's reaction to playing the part of his supposedly doted-upon wife, Sark merely shrugged again and tried to look as regretful as possible. "Osannolikt," he told the man. "Hon er mycket skygg."

On the drive back, Sark tried to avoid slamming his head back into the headrest. He couldn't stop thinking about kissing Sydney. Again and again, and possibly ad infinitum. He knew, and continued to remind himself harshly, that this train of thought was unacceptable—and if it began to impair his judgment, it could prove dangerous. Even lethal.

Which, he realized abruptly, feeling chilled, might be precisely Bristow's endgame.

It wouldn't be the first time she had employed her beauty and sexuality to daze and distract a target. The incident with the towel, her supposedly relaxed demeanor, the kiss—they all took on an entirely different connotation in light of this possibility. Even her vulnerability of last night could have been carefully premeditated to lull him into a false sense of security. It was hardly beyond her formidable skills.

Perhaps none of this was true, and Sydney wasn't attempting to manipulate him, but Sark resolved to be more vigilant with her at all times.

Furthermore, he resolved to stop thinking about kissing her—a resolution he proceeded to break approximately 2.5 seconds later.

He made it back to the safehouse before nine o'clock and parked the SUV in the garage. That way, he could lock the garage door behind him, not leaving any vulnerable exits while he was unloading the boxes from the back of the vehicle. Assuming, of course, that Sydney was actually awake.

He opened the side door between the dining room and the stairs, then returned to the car and grabbed the first box. _Christ._ If he'd realized that Julia Thorne was apparently prone to wearing full suits of armor, he would have never attempted this. The sheer ridiculousness of this situation was on par with that caped cab driver uniform he'd worn on a mission for SD-6. He barely avoided dropping the container on his foot as he set it down.

"Sark?" Sydney called out to his right, sounding wary.

"Ja," he replied without thinking. "Det är mig."

She appeared on the other side of the kitchen counter and gave him a strange look. "Sark . . . why are you speaking Swedish?"

Oh. Switching languages, to him, was a little like rerouting a train. It took a moment of effort. "Sorry. Yes, it's me," he repeated, though Sydney was almost certainly just as fluent in Swedish and required no translation.

"I can see that," was her only reply. She put down the large bowl in her hands and walked around the counter. He was almost certain that she was deliberately avoiding eye contact, but it was possible that her interest was simply occupied by his sizeable cargo. "What is all this?" she asked as he went back for the second, slightly smaller box.

"Your . . . clothing," Sark grunted, depositing it on top of the first. He closed and locked the door behind him. "At least, this is what I was able to obtain without raising any suspicion. Though it appears to be quite comprehensive," he noted with a trace of irony.

"Well, thank you. For doing this."

Sydney wished she could keep a catalogue of Sark's gestures and expressions for later study. She knew, for example, that the slight movement of his head and tightening of his lips was an acknowledgement of her gratitude. She just couldn't for the life of her figure out _how_ she knew. He could create an entire seminar on nonverbal communication just by videotaping himself.

"Do you want a waffle?" she offered. "I'm making some."

She looked straight at him for the first time and forgot her intention to look away. At the moment, his eyes were such a clear, tropical sea blue that it was difficult to imagine they held any grey. It was a little disconcerting, really. Then again, she was used to her own eyes, which were decisively brown and never did anything more exotic than looking hazel when she wore green.

"Very well," he finally answered. "Give me a moment to change clothes."

"Sure." Sydney retreated to the kitchen, despite her lingering distrust of the deceptively harmless-looking space, and spooned batter into the waffle maker. As she closed it, her thoughts returned to the kiss like a child picking at a scab. She would rather think about the drafting of Sloane's pardon agreement than rehash the incident one more time, but she just couldn't help herself. It wasn't as if she had Francie around to gossip with, to get it out in the open.

_Oh, nice one, Syd. Yes, let's think about how the man you kissed last night had your best friend murdered two years ago._

It was a ridiculous, circular train of thought—one she had already exhausted. Nothing was going to occur to her that could possibly absolve Sark of his past crimes, and it wasn't as if she could just forget them. But when this was over, and she was back at the CIA, would she really be able to think of him as nothing more than another dangerous enemy?

Cultivating detachment was always a big part of her job, and failure to do so had always been her personal weakness. Shooting guards or security details was always the easiest. They were not real people, not parents or spouses, they were hostiles. Targets. Obstacles.

With the big players, though, it was so much harder to block it all out. Memories of Sloane the evil, manipulative criminal battled memories of being fed cookies in his kitchen after she'd had a bad dream, when she was five years old and staying with him and Emily. And now there was Sark, assassin and all-around bad guy . . . who had been abused by his father, had taken care of her for almost two weeks, and had gone to the trouble of importing the bulk of her clothing from god-knows-where.

Just thinking about it made her head hurt.

When the hell had her life gotten so complicated? Some days she wished she was back at SD-6, happily convinced that she was working for the CIA.

Sark returned and perched on a stool on the other side of the counter, for which she was very grateful. Having a physical barrier between them seemed like the safest bet, in case she decided to strangle him or—even worse—kiss him again. "I wasn't aware that I owned a waffle maker," he remarked, interlacing his fingers on the polished oak countertop. "Sometimes I believe my housekeeper becomes a tad overzealous in his efforts."

She hmm'ed vaguely. "I'm surprised you let anyone else in."

"Periodically. We've never actually met. All he knows about his employer is a false name, Olaf Svensson."

"Let me guess," said Sydney, keeping one eye on the waffle maker. "You surveil his every move and pay him enough that he never asks questions."

"That is essentially the arrangement, yes."

The light on the machine went off. "Here's breakfast," she said as she lifted the lid and scooped the waffle onto a plate. "Do you want anything on it?"

Sark's only response was a blank, somewhat baffled stare.

"Don't tell me you've never had a waffle before." It wasn't as if she was handing him a frosted Pop-Tart or something. He would probably go on a self-imposed hunger strike before eating one of those, not that he had a lot of weight to spare. But waffles—normal people ate waffles, didn't they?

"I can't say it's ever been a staple of my diet."

"Ah." For lack of a better course of action, she handed him the plate. After a second or two of examination, Sark tore off a piece of the waffle, popped it in his mouth, and chewed carefully. It was a bizarre moment, standing there and waiting for him to deliver a verdict.

"Interesting." Not exactly a glowing response, but he kept eating.

With a mental shrug, Sydney returned to the block of baker's chocolate she'd found and started attacking it with a dull butter knife. If she was Sark, she wouldn't trust her with a sharp blade either, but it was still a little ridiculous. She felt like she was bludgeoning the chocolate more than cutting it.

"I don't mean to interrupt, but . . . what exactly are you doing?"

"You don't have any chocolate chips," she explained, speaking over her shoulder. "This is the best I could come up with."

"Are you—"

Sark was interrupted by his own cell phone. "Yes," he answered it after a quick glance at the display. A pause followed, then: "Really." Sydney watched him closely, her curiosity piqued, as the silence stretched on. "Very well. I'll expect details upon my arrival. . . . See that you do."

He pocketed the phone and met Sydney's gaze. "It appears you're going to be left to your own devices for a few days. I have some business to attend to."

She wanted to yell, or shake him, or slam her fist into the refrigerator. _Naturally_ he had something more important to do. Naturally. No one knew she was alive except Kendall, her father was in a prison cell, but all plans to get her home had to wait because _Sark_ had to go blow someone's head off.

"You expect me to just stay here until you get back?"

Whatever expression flickered across Sark's features was too short-lived to be deciphered. "It never crossed my mind," he replied evenly. "However, I'm sure you've realized by now that this house makes a very capable and comfortable prison."

She said nothing. If he believed she was too helpless to escape with that much time at her disposal, so much the better. By the time he got back from killing people in some far corner of the globe, she would be safely in LA, repairing her memory thousands of miles away from him and his perilous kitchen.

"That said, I have no intention of underestimating you. Armed guards will be patrolling the grounds, and they will shoot to kill. Should you evade them, you will find a variety of deadly failsafes built into the wall surrounding the perimeter."

Well, goddammit.

Sydney continued her massacre of the chocolate block with even more force, and soon she had enough bits of chocolate to mix into the next portion of batter she poured into the machine. It was crucial that she remember that Sark was her jailer, not her host. And it is unacceptable, she chided herself, to kiss your jailer even once, let alone entertain the possibility of doing so again. She needed to get home before she went completely soft in the head.

"I find it interesting," Sark commented, an unmistakeable edge to his voice, "that you now seem so determined to pursue a means of escape, when only yesterday you seemed willing to accept our . . . 'temporary association.' I believe that was the phrase you used to describe it."

_Yes, you dolt,_ Sydney ranted silently, staring fixedly at the waffle maker. _But that was before I kissed you and you kissed me back and I liked it._ Clearly, this incarceration was having a detrimental affect on her mental faculties, and the sooner she could get home, the better. That said, she had absolutely no intention of mentioning the kiss to Sark in any way, shape, or form. "I don't handle incarceration very well," she replied coldly. It was the truth, after all. If she could handle being imprisoned like this, Sydney reasoned, she would be able to shake the impulse to run her fingertips over the hairs at the back of Sark's neck, so short they were almost prickly when stroked the wrong way, but velvet-soft when smoothed down.

Her face was twisted into a furious grimace, so she was grateful her back was to Sark. She loathed herself for this. She knew what losing Vaughn, missing him, did to her, and still she'd left herself open to another relapse. Julia Thorne could get away with it. Sydney Bristow could not.

She took a slow, measured breath. It wasn't Sark's fault. He'd just been his normal, conniving self until she decided to plant one on him.

There was no need to be overtly hostile.

By the time she sat next to Sark with her waffle, Sydney's face was appropriately calm. And if she was so hyperaware of him that it made her feel twitchy—well, at least she wasn't across from him, looking right at him. "Tell me about Olaf Svensson," she suggested in a conciliatory tone.

For what felt like a very long time but was, realistically, probably only a few seconds, Sark turned his head and stared at her. She refused to establish eye contact, instead opting to consume her breakfast, even though the chocolate bits were a little too hot to be eating it right away. After a few bites, she reached for the glass of orange juice she'd poured before Sark had returned with the boxes. In doing so, Sydney happened to glance down at his left hand.

"I take it he's married."

Sark followed the direction of her gaze and noticed the ring. "Yes," he said, tugging the silver band from his finger. "Olaf married several years ago, for the sake of convenience. It allows me to explain shipments, like the one I retrieved this morning, as gifts for my wife. Unfortunately, my local transporter has developed an interest in meeting her."

"How do you get around that?" She couldn't help snickering, and she noticed his smirk out of the corner of her eye.

"Unfortunately, Olaf's wife is very shy and of delicate health, so they don't often entertain guests."

"That's a shame," Sydney commented with mock pity, and they shared one of their amused, conspiratorial looks that she knew would haunt her when she returned home and got some perspective. Rather than dwell on that prospect, she held out a piece of her waffle. "Here—do you want to try it?"

From the way Sark took it from her hand, it might as well have been an incendiary device. Again, he ate and she watched.

"An improvement," he remarked, "but insufficient to compensate for the odd texture."

"Maybe next time I'll make pancakes," said Sydney, then immediately regretted it. Not only had she failed to berate him for his thoughtless criticism of the breakfast she had voluntarily made for him, but she'd also implied that there would be a next time. She was a prisoner, not a kitchen slave.

Sark, however, just shot her a nearly imperceptible smile and got to his feet.

"If you'll excuse me, Miss Bristow, there are preparations to be made."

Her heart sank at the thought of her impending solitary confinement, but she kept her expression neutral. "Sure."

Sydney spent most of the rest of the day unpacking, sorting, ironing, re-folding and hanging her recovered clothing. Sark all but disappeared; she made multiple trips past his bedroom on her way to the washer and dryer with the clothes she'd deemed in need of washing, but the door remained firmly shut. She honestly felt a little lonely already—something she chalked up as another alarming symptom of her captivity-induced dementia.

The experience of recovering her former attire was a bit like recovering lost treasure; it was especially wonderful to get lingerie that actually fit. Studying a black matched set adorned with lace and pink ribbon, she had to admit that she'd dressed a lot better as Julia Thorne than she did in real life. On the one hand, she'd felt the pain of her enforced exile from the people she loved on a daily basis, but sometimes, when she was caught up in an assignment for Kendall, not worrying about anything else, being Julia had been almost . . . fun.

Sydney's cheeks flushed as she recalled the last time she'd worn the ribbon-and-lace confections. Now _there_ was a memory she could stand to misplace.

Dinner that night was cooked by Sark once again. This time he made steaks and served a Pinot Noir. They barely spoke to each other throughout the meal; Sydney was alarmed and frustrated by her reluctance to see him go, and she assumed he was preoccupied with his upcoming job. God help whoever happened to get in his way, or accidentally cross his path. She'd seen firsthand the trail of bodies Sark was capable of leaving in his wake.

Just before she went upstairs, he called out her name. She turned back on the second stair, expecting him to say something, but for the moment Sark just looked up at her, his shoulders slightly hunched, his hands in the pockets of his black pants. It was disarmingly _cute_, damn him. He regarded her silently with those changeable eyes, currently a dark greyish blue. "There's something you should know, before I depart," he finally said. "In case of an emergency."

"Yes?" Her grip on the banister tightened. Was this job so dangerous he honestly thought he might not return?

Impossible. Sark always survived. He was rather like a cockroach in that way, and only a marginally superior conversationalist. He would be fine.

"If you go into my bedroom and look behind the Rembrandt above the desk, you will find a hidden compartment. Inside it, there is a valuable Rambaldi artifact entrusted to me by your mother. If I do not return within seventy-two hours, I want you to remove the artifact from its hiding place and eat it."

In Sydney's mind, the budding concern for Sark's welfare was smashed into oblivion by a wrecking ball of shock and indignation.

"Eat it?!" she sputtered, completely blindsided by his request. "You've got to be joking!" If he thought that she was going to blindly ingest some kind of unknown substance—particularly one associated with Rambaldi—his delusions outstripped even what she would expect from Sloane.

It was only then that his solemn expression wavered, and he smirked at her. "Yes, Miss Bristow. I am."

She was going to kill him. With her bare hands, or a dull butter knife, or one of those guns she _knew_ were hidden all over the place. Not for a single instant had she been worried about whether or not his smug, irreverent face returned intact. And she was not amused. Not even in the deepest, darkest corners of her rapidly deteriorating mind. Her mouth's attempts to smile were only an unusual expression of her sudden bloodlust.

"Barring unforeseen complications, I should return within a few days," he added.

"I guess I'll see you then," she replied. She told herself it was frustration with her predicament that tightened her voice. _Sark is not funny. Not in this universe._

Naturally, he smirked again. "Good night, Sydney."

"Good night, Julian."

She wasn't really sure why she said it—maybe just to see his reaction. He didn't disappoint. Sark's eyes widened, his eyebrows rose, and he straightened to his full height. Finally, a slow smile spread across the bastard's face. "See you in a few days," he reiterated quietly, with an unnerving degree of warmth in his voice from which Sydney promptly retreated. He was still at the bottom of the stairs when she reached her room and closed the door.

When she woke up the next morning there was a bag of chocolate chips in the kitchen, and Sark was gone.


	11. Chapter 11

Title from Rent, quote from Star Trek. :) I'm not a huge fan of this chapter, but it was unavoidable, narrative-wise. Promise it'll get more interesting soon!

**XI. Without You**

_We all have scars. Of one kind or another._

Sydney knew there was no reason for the house to feel different. Sark had left her alone once before, and aside from the conspicuous lack of infuriating smirks, the effect of his absence had been rather minimal. Still, as she meandered through the rooms of the safehouse, it was hard not to feel as if her every move was an affront to the deathly silence in the air. She ate an apple, and decided it was the loudest article of food she'd ever encountered.

The chocolate chips were quickly stored in the pantry, because looking at them had the unfortunate effect of reminding her of what an unexpectedly thoughtful gesture it was, which in turn prompted an inappropriately warm and melty feeling. The gesture itself was, she adamantly told herself, unacceptable. There was only one man in the entire world whom she had ever allowed to take care of her that way, and his name was Michael Vaughn. Even Danny and Noah had known never to cross the line between their relationship and her self-sufficiency, but she'd let Vaughn in so close that the line got blurrier every day.

_Yeah,_ she thought as her apple core thunked to the bottom of the trash can. _And look how well __that__ turned out._

She'd researched Lauren Reed as soon as she saw her with Vaughn, the night Sydney tried to go back to him. It had all been as covert as possible, since Julia Thorne couldn't have cared less about Vaughn, but the information had been pretty readily available. She was, after all, a senator's daughter, and a member of the NSC in her own right. Sydney was able to find out Lauren's age, background, the details of her career—even the one thing she had honestly never wanted to know: the wedding date.

Julia Thorne had a mission in Aconcagua that day. She didn't leave behind a single survivor.

After that, she threw herself into every aspect of her job with an almost obsessively single-minded devotion. She also began to work more frequently with Simon on her assignments for the Covenant. Initially, she requested the pairing, but the quality of their work was such that their partnership became status quo.

Sydney wandered into the room containing the TV and stereo system for the first time. She privately considered it the living room, but she really doubted that Sark did much living there. He seemed to favor his study over all other rooms in the house. The TV, of course, was pristine and expensive-looking, but she couldn't find a single DVD—not that she was terribly surprised. In Sark's world, watching movies was probably something that happened to other people.

Then again, it wasn't as if she was much different. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd sat down to watch anything—and that _wasn't_ because of the memory-scrambling fiasco. Life had always been so incredibly busy. Even meals and sleeping took a backseat to her persistently ringing cell phone.

She managed to unearth a few CDs, and took the top one at random. Anything to banish the silence.

As it loaded in the stereo, she studied the case. Серёга. It probably should have surprised her to find Russian hip-hop in Sark's collection, instead of a compilation of Chopin's nocturnes, but there were times when Sydney's shock response utterly failed her. One of the many effects of having seen too much.

On the other hand, she couldn't help grinning when the rapping began, so at least she hadn't lost her sense of humor.

After a brief moment of consideration, she cranked up the music to near-deafening levels and went upstairs to find some workout clothes. Just like being a teenager again, she mused, except with an absent captor rather than an absent father. Also, if she were her sixteen-year-old self, she would probably be ordering a pizza, not preparing for an exercise regime intended to maintain her ass-kicking powers for future use.

Exercise pants, tank top, sports bra. Oh, it was glorious to have her clothes back. On second thought, she discarded the tank top. It wasn't as if anyone was going to be around to see her sweat, inasmuch as she'd be able to get a decent workout without breaking any furniture.

She moved the dining room table out of the way, shook out her limbs, and began. The enclosed space basically limited her options to muscle exercises and shadowboxing, so she devoted herself to those for nearly an hour and a half, trying to ignore the little voice inside her head that insisted she wanted to _run,_ thank you very much. She doubted Sark would ever unleash her in Galway for a daily jog.

After a quick break to get a drink of water and replace the Russian rap with some loud rock music she didn't recognize, Sydney went back to her routine. She didn't stop until every single muscle in her body was burning wretchedly. It reminded her of the old days, training at SD-6.

Now, as she had back then, she eventually dragged herself off the floor to run a warm bath. Her own bedroom only had a shower, but the other spare room had an adjacent bathroom with a big, tempting tub. As soon as it was full, she sank blissfully into the water and laid her head back. She could handle this for a few days. In fact, it would probably be good for her, and when Sark got back, she would see him clearly for the ruthless criminal he was.

The second CD had ended, she noted with irritation, leaving the oppressive silence in its wake. How could this house be so damn _quiet_?

Since it was getting cold anyway, she emerged from her bath and watched the water drain away. Then, impulsively, feeling somehow like a disobedient child, she filled it again. She washed her hair, shaved, exfoliated, then got out and trimmed her fingernails, plucked her eyebrows, and availed herself of some lovely spruce-scented lotion. If only she had some nail polish, she could really put a finishing touch on all this excessive pampering.

As she looked through her drawers, Sydney had to laugh at herself. Was this it? Was this really what she would have ended up doing if she'd had the luxury of free time at some point in the last ten years? Well, probably not. She probably would have spent a lot of that time reading books, and enjoying uninterrupted time with Will and Francie. But it did feel . . . nice, really, to do things just for herself.

_I should have gone to that spa with Francie when I had the chance_. She pressed her lips together to stave off the pang of guilt and sadness. There were times when it was hard not to feel like a plague, descending on the people she loved and robbing them of their lives, their choices, their happiness.

_No._ Sydney took a deep, steadying breath. She was going to enjoy this day, not wander down the path of those dark thoughts.

And to that end, she was going to need some food.

The second part of the day was considerably more low-key than the first. After constructing and consuming another colossal sandwich, Sydney retreated to the study, where she picked up a copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and curled up in the suede armchair. The chair smelled a little bit like him. She still couldn't figure out the scent, but being nestled there was—well, it was sort of comforting, in a way. It served as a reminder that the outside world did exist, and it was not as empty or unbearably quiet as this vacant shell of a house. And certain people in that world smelled very nice.

She moaned and buried her face in the suede cushion. Couldn't she just get regular old Stockholm Syndrome, and start sympathizing with the enemy's agenda—in this case, she supposed, the agenda of doing whatever paid the most money? No. Of course not. That would be too simple.

And many adjectives could be attributed to Sydney's life, but 'simple' was not one of them. So of course, she had to have a _crush_ on the enemy.

It wasn't fair. It really wasn't. It shouldn't even have been _possible_, because—aside from all the other reasons—she was still deeply, desperately, irrevocably in love with Michael Vaughn, and it seemed completely insupportable that her hormones would form a second ill-advised attachment while her heart was still being shredded into pieces by Vaughn's marriage to Lauren Reed. It was as if someone had set her emotions to self-destruct as violently as possible.

But it didn't matter, because she was better than her hormones, and she could rise above whatever madness it was that made her want to kiss Sark. Yes, her life had been destroyed. There was no way around that; she couldn't control it. What she could control was how she dealt with it.

She finished the book before seven o'clock, and started perusing the shelves for another story to occupy her time. The well-kept old copy of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ made her pause. She took it out and studied the cover, and for the first time felt a weighty, sad sense of nostalgia for what she had lost in the fire. Even after everything Irina Derevko had put her and her father through, Sydney had cherished her first edition of this book. It was like a small, tenuous portal to a time when Laura Bristow was just a literature professor and a loving mother. A time when they were all so happy.

More than her old round box of photographs, or even the antique silver frame on her bedside table, Sydney had loved that book. She leaned forward to rest her forehead on the edge of the bookshelf, wishing herself back to two years ago for the forty-seven millionth time and counting.

The doors of the study slammed shut.

Her reaction was instantaneous. She whirled around, hands ready to strike, surging with adrenaline, ready to fight off any and all attackers. Except there was no one there. The room was every bit as empty and tranquil as it had been, with only that one obvious exception. Could intruders have entered the house and trapped her inside the study without her being aware of their presence? She'd like to think it was impossible.

She dug her bare toes into the rug, trying to devise a strategy, but it was a little complicated when she had no weapon and no insight into who might be breaking into the safehouse—if that was, in fact, what was happening. What had happened to Sark's Fence of Death and armed-to-the-teeth, shoot-to-kill guards?

In her heightened state of awareness, it was easy to hear the front door open and shut. There was no way Sark could be returning so soon. Belatedly, with all the force of an idea held at bay until it can no longer be ignored, she realized—it could be the Covenant, coming to get her back.

She wasn't going to let them. She would find something in this room that could be used as a bludgeon, and she would—

"Sydney?"

As the doors swung back open, she racked her tangled memories, all the more difficult to access under stress, trying to place that voice. She knew it, could recognize the inflection perfectly. It was there, hovering just out of reach, like a landmark she'd seen every day but had never really stopped to look at.

"You can come out now, Sydney. Sorry about locking you in. We've got a strict protocol to follow. Mr. Sark's orders."

_Oh my god._ "Gonzales?" she said in utter disbelief, striding quickly out of the study and into the main downstairs area. "Is that you?"

"I knew you'd remember me!" The former elevator security guard of Credit Dauphine—or, more accurately, SD-6—beamed at her. The joy on his face was belied by the highly modified M16 Gonzales had trained on her chest.

"How—? what are you—? you're working for _Sark_?"

"Just this time," Gonzales explained cheerfully, the rifle never wavering. "I don't usually like to leave the States, but for what he's paying . . ."

"Whatever it is, if you help me escape, I'll triple it," she offered without hesitation.

He just laughed. "Sorry, Sydney. You couldn't pay me enough to double-cross him. I gotta put my son through college, you know."

_Zachery,_ she recalled, faintly but surely. This conversation had gone from surreal to certifiably insane. "And . . . how is he?"

"Oh, great, great. Chip off the old block," said Gonzales, then looked down at his gun and reconsidered. "Well, sorta."

"Jim . . . why are you pointing that at me?"

"Like I said, orders." His tone was only vaguely apologetic. "Mr. Sark wanted me to check on you every evening. Is there anything you need?"

There were about a thousand things she needed. Freedom, privacy, a friend, some decent music, an erasure of the last two years, Sark's head on a platter. To feel safe, to feel sane, to feel Vaughn's arms around her. It would also be nice if the barrel of that gun could be pointed somewhere else. She was willing to bet good money that Gonzales could provide none of these things.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"You sure?"

Sydney straightened her shoulders and fixed Gonzales with her best Jack Bristow glare. No one in the world could imitate her father like she could, and she saw Gonzales start to take a step back, then catch himself. "As I said—I'm fine," she repeated. Her tone was icy, unforgiving, sharp as obsidian.

"Right, um. See you tomorrow, then. If you'll get back in the study, please."

She obeyed just to get him out of her sight. Also, she carefully studied the doors as they swung shut again, trying to figure out how the system worked. In all likelihood, the guards had been given some kind of heat-signature detection technology to determine her whereabouts inside the house at all times. If every single door was linked into an electrical security system, it would be possible to trap her in a room to keep her from ever getting near the open front door. That way Gonzales could come and go without worrying about her attacking him in a bid for escape.

It made sense, and worse, she could see no way around it. Whatever system had been rigged into the doors, there was no visible evidence of it left in the open to be tampered with. The hinges were unnaturally bulky, she noted, but also custom-made, with no access points for removal by a screwdriver.

She doubted that Sark had ever held anyone hostage here before, or had ever planned to, but that hadn't stopped him from making arrangements for the possibility. If it wasn't making things so damn inconvenient for her, she would have admired his forward-thinking precautions. Then again, if he wasn't a ruthlessly opportunistic murderer, she might admire his kissing ability. Such was the nature of hypotheticals.

Dinner was slightly overcooked spaghetti and the rest of that baguette. Sydney was feeling exhausted from her workout, so she just left all the dishes on the counter, telling herself that she would load the dishwasher in the morning. And if the tomato sauce got dried on, at least they weren't her dishes. Olaf Svensson could just replace them if he had to.

Before she got into bed, she went to the bathroom, turned on the light, and then closed the door almost completely. A faint glow was cast into the bedroom, which was all she needed. Memories of her days spent starving in sensory deprivation made it hard for her to sleep in a completely dark room. She wished she had some soothing music to play, but Sark's limited collection didn't seem to offer anything of the sort.

Despite how tired she was, it took her a long time to fall asleep. The sheer looming emptiness of the house set her on edge, and no matter how firmly she reminded herself that it was entirely psychological, that it would be just as quiet even if Sark _were_ there, her body refused to relax.

_This is pathetic. It's as if I'm still five years old and afraid of the dark._

Her last coherent thought before drifting off was that it was never the dark she'd been afraid of. It was the things that might hide in that darkness.

When sleep did come, it was marked by nightmares. Some were only flashes of memory, impressions of past or imagined terror, or empty scenes she couldn't escape from. Once she was trapped in a hospital room that was flooding with blood, pounding on the door. She writhed helplessly in her sleep, but did not wake, her mind jumping seamlessly from dream to dream. The last few were longer, clearer, and felt horrifyingly real.

She found herself at the scene of Francie's murder, only to look down and find Vaughn's corpse at her feet.

She was in her pitch-black cell, sobbing, trying to eat the bowl of dog food, and she vomited, but pieces of Rambaldi artifacts came up, cutting up her insides, clattering to the floor covered in blood.

The Covenant was testing her loyalty. McKenas Cole looked on with glee, but the duct tape encircled _her_ body, gagged _her_ mouth, and she struggled uselessly to escape as Sark smiled and stabbed the blade into her heart.

She woke up screaming.


	12. Chapter 12

Title by Alanis Morissette, quote by Sarah McLachlan.

**XII. Surrendering**

_Memory seeps from my veins. Let me be empty and weightless,  
and maybe I'll find some peace tonight._

When Sydney stumbled downstairs to make tea the next morning, all her muscles ached and she was mind-numbingly tired. She hadn't gotten much sleep after waking up from the nightmares, and she basically felt like death. Even the bruise on the back of her head was throbbing again. But it wasn't just that. She felt as if she was walking on eggshells in her own mind. Those hellish hours of nightmares had been more harrowing than some of her actual captivity.

A man in her British Lit class used to stretch rubber bands when he was thinking. It had driven her crazy. She would get to the point where she was completely fixated on the band, stretched to its limit, and she would hope desperately for it to just _break_ already, just get it over with.

Sooner or later, they always broke.

She stopped in the middle of the dining room and stared speculatively at the table. More specifically, the chairs.

With barely an instant of hesitation, she strode across the room and hefted one of the chairs in her hands. It wasn't too heavy for her, but it was well-made. Solid. Exactly the sort of chair she would need. She lifted it experimentally, rotated it, seeking the best grip to allow for an abrupt release.

She turned at the waist, extending her arms to the right, her fingers wrapped securely around the most expedient chunks of wood. Then Sydney turned almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees, too fast for the eye to follow, using the chair to gain momentum until she released it at the last possible moment, sending it crashing into the nearest window. The impact was predictably loud, but it seemed almost deafening in the heavy silence.

Nothing happened. At least, not to the window, which she assumed was made of bulletproof glass. Two of the chair's legs broke off.

As she examined the furniture's remains with a detached, clinical air, Sydney realized she desperately wanted to do it all over again. She could make her way through the house until there was nothing left intact that she could lift. Perhaps, she mused, picking up a chair leg, she would be able to get a bludgeon or a crude stake out of the bargain as well. At the moment, though, that aspect didn't matter much to her.

In a general, unfocused way, she still considered escape as a viable option. But when she tried to concoct an actual plan, it was difficult to get around the fact that she really just didn't care anymore. Let Sark return her on his own schedule, for his own reasons. At some point during the night before, she had snapped, just like one of those fucking rubber bands. She was putting herself back together like a puzzle, but all the pieces had reconfigured, and she didn't know what shape they would make when she was through. Until then . . . well, until then, all she really wanted to do was break things.

Without a single sound passing her lips, Sydney swung the main body of the chair up into the air, then smashed it into the window again, over and over, until she was only clutching white-knuckled at the back piece. She dropped it down on top of the other pieces and stared down at the debris.

_Well. That was extravagant._

A strangled laugh tumbled from her throat, then twisted into a sob. Her mood swung back like a pendulum, weighty and unstoppable.

She fell to her knees right there at the base of the stairs, crying, and it all started coming back to her, good old overemotional Sydney Bristow, who grieved the loss of the last two years and generally just sat cooperatively in chairs rather than wreaking splintered destruction.

But even as she allowed herself to experience that grief, she wasn't foolish enough to believe it was so simple. She knew, like quiet thunder in the corners of her mind, that those feelings would return, and with them the urge to destroy until her rage had been satisfied, her vengeance fulfilled.

She welcomed it.

Until then, however, it seemed best to inhabit the more peaceful middle ground between sobbing and smashing.

Sydney took a few long, deep breaths before standing up. _Nothing like a little bit of a breakdown before breakfast_. She thought halfheartedly about cleaning up the rubble that used to be a pretty nice chair, but decided against it. Making tea seemed like a much more productive use of her time.

While the water boiled, she ate another apple, on the off-chance that one a day would keep away not only doctors, but violent psychotic urges. Then she ate a biscuit with clotted cream and butter and jam on it, just because it was delicious and she had yet to find acceptable clotted cream in Los Angeles.

Once the soothing scent of chamomile was wafting from the warm mug in her hand, she moved to the stereo system and skimmed over the meager stack of CDs with a deep sense of futility. One caught her eye simply because it was a blank silver disc in a clear case, utterly nondescript. A compilation? Sark didn't strike her as the type to sit around his safehouse making mix CDs in his spare time. She slid the CD into the stereo and waited, but nothing happened. The machine didn't even seem to be acknowledging the disc's existence.

Well, _that_ was bizarre. Could it just be blank? Possibly, but why would a single blank CD be sitting around—

In a flash of inspiration, Sydney ejected the disc, crossed to the other side of the room and put it into the DVD player. After a brief search for the correct remote, she turned on the television, and an embarrassing amount of fumbling finally synched the TV to read the DVD instead of TV channels. By the time she managed all of this, the video was already playing.

It was a grainy video feed—security camera was her gut instinct—and she found herself watching a restaurant, either in Russia or another Russian-speaking country if the menus were any indication. She scanned the diners, looking for something remarkable, something out of the ordinary, someone important.

All of a sudden, she saw him. Lazarey.

His features were barely distinguishable in blurry black and white, but she was certain. He was sitting alone, reading a newspaper and eating some kind of soup. After a while, she went back to examining the other patrons. Lazarey had to be meeting someone there, but she didn't know who. She couldn't even determine when the video had been taken, though she assumed it had been at least two years ago.

The longer she watched absolutely nothing happen, the more she became convinced that either Lazarey's contact wasn't showing up, or someone had pulled video feed from the wrong day. He finished his soup, folded his paper, paid and left.

Suddenly the footage switched, becoming much clearer. Professional surveillance equipment, she was willing to bet. It observed from across the road, following Lazarey as he exited a restaurant—the same restaurant?—and made his way down the street. He was followed to his workplace, and then the video switched to security feed of his office. Still nothing remarkable. He made phone calls, worked on his computer, signed documents. There was no sound.

What the hell was going on? This was the most boring surveillance she had ever seen. The most scandalous thing Lazarey had done was picking at his teeth with his fingernail, and that had lasted for all of three seconds. She had to be missing something, but she just couldn't figure out what it was.

She kept watching, partly out of curiosity but mostly out of a stubborn refusal to leave the mystery unresolved. The remains of her tea grew cold on the coffee table as she saw Lazarey leave the building, the hours of office work having been mercifully abbreviated. Her frustration only grew when the feed switched again, now somehow concealed inside his home. A strange, uncomfortable feeling was building in the pit of her stomach, and she had no idea why.

Lazarey retreated to the shower, and the feed jumped to when he emerged, dressed in a dark robe, and moved into the kitchen. He poured a glass of vodka and sat at the kitchen table, looking over some of the documents he'd brought home. Even if something important was on those papers, it was impossible to discern anything on them at this distance. Sydney reached out and touched the screen as if it would provide a solution to her confusion.

She located and pressed the Display button. When she'd inserted the DVD, it had apparently picked up where someone—presumably Sark—had left off. This was two and a half hours into three hours and forty-two minutes of video.

Which, to her retrospective chagrin, was when the truth finally began to dawn on her.

This was not official surveillance. Lazarey was not meeting anyone, performing covert actions, or participating in anything more or less than the activities of his daily life. These videos were not proof of some past operation. This was evidence of nothing but a son seeking information about the father he'd never really known.

She practically lunged for the remote to turn off the TV. Though she'd been driven by nothing more than innocent curiosity, she wanted to apologize for what she had seen, and what she'd realized about Sark because of it. The churning in her stomach was stronger than ever, and now she could recognize it as guilt.

After two years in custody, he had probably completely forgotten that the DVD had been left out for anyone to find. Sydney couldn't even imagine what he would do if he found out that she knew about it. Almost any reaction seemed plausible, from utter indifference to murderous rage. But even if he didn't care, she did. She felt as if she had violated something crucial to the very existence of Sark.

Or was it just the construct of Sark that she held in her mind?

She stared at her reflection in the black screen, trying to scrutinize motives whose existence she was barely willing to acknowledge. It was as if she _wanted_ him to remain mysterious and impenetrable, above and apart from the human emotions and desires that drove other people.

Yes, she realized. That was exactly what she wanted. Because goddammit, she was sick of seeing people in shades of grey. She didn't want Irina Derevko to love her _and_ kill innocent people as the means to an end. She didn't want Arvin Sloane to have loved Emily so completely, to have treated her like his own daughter, when he'd had Danny killed, and Francie, and Dixon's wife. Was it too much to ask that Sark be nothing but a selfish, ruthless sociopath?

Apparently so.

It wasn't as if she now imagined him to be harmless and cuddly deep down, some kind of wretched, misunderstood soul. Oh, no. He was every inch a killer, and while he might not commit murder "like another habit" like that freak show Toole in the 80s, Sark was not a man to let anything stand in the way of his objectives. Still, finding evidence of any vulnerability on his part surprised her far more than it should have.

She wondered if Sark had ever felt that way about her in the past two weeks, had ever been caught off guard by her weakness, her flaws. Could he possibly be just as unsettled by this new and unfamiliar degree of intimacy? Doubtful. He was, after all, her captor, and the instigator of their current living situation.

Still, she liked to believe that it bothered him a little more than he let on. Since he did not, in fact, 'let on' as a rule, it wouldn't take much.

Sydney stood up and stretched her arms above her head, standing on tiptoe and extending her fingers until several joints had popped. With a satisfied sigh, she bent in half, laying her palms flat on the floor while keeping her legs straight. If she'd ever had the time, she would have taken some yoga classes, but as it was she'd just become a religious stretcher. It wasn't enough to be strong in her line of work—being lithe and flexible was incredibly valuable.

The ability to squeeze into embarrassingly tight clothing and run in four-inch heels also came in handy, but nobody advertised _that_ in recruitment. No, it was all about serving your country and protecting the innocent. Then they handed you a dominatrix outfit and told you to get to work.

Outside, a light drizzle began to fall, and Sydney secretly hoped that all her M16-toting guards would get nasty colds.

Having stretched every muscle to her satisfaction, she circled the coffee table she'd sat on to watch the video and flopped down on the couch. It was long enough that her feet didn't even hang off the end. She would have pegged Sark for having the sort of expensive, spartan furniture that forced people to sit ramrod-straight, but his tastes seemed to run more towards large, comfortable pieces. Or perhaps those were Olaf's preferences.

It was strange, she mused, how an alias could take on a life of its own. She remembered Agent Lennox talking about his partner, how she feared losing track of herself in the midst of her assumed identities. It was something Sydney could definitely relate to. She'd never done really deep cover until her entire life had become a two-year-long deep cover assignment, and it changed her in ways she never could have anticipated.

She'd always privately thought that almost every alias was an extension of herself, in some way. The part of her that had delighted in the intricate logistics of multivariable calculus, or the part that secretly enjoyed snapping off orders like a spoiled heiress and watching people scurry. Or the part that liked to walk into a nightclub wearing clothes Sydney Bristow would never wear, feeling an exhilarating rush of power over the men whose eyes couldn't help following her.

Julia Thorne had become more than just an extension. She was an expansion, an addition, another layer to the composite.

As Julia, she had been colder—all her attachments cruelly severed, her grief tamped down. As a result, she was more efficient, more calculating, fiercer and possessed of a devil-may-care recklessness that annoyed Kendall and aroused Simon. She was ready for anything. She had to be. There was no guardian angel on her com, no protective father or loving friends. And for all her double-agent status with Kendall, at the end of the day she was utterly alone.

Other aliases had been discarded, cast from her mind before the latest disguise was even back in its box. But Julia Thorne, she was beginning to realize, had been so much more. When the pain and the sorrow had threatened to swallow her, Julia had been the adhesive securing the fragments of Sydney Bristow. She could have become depressed, or even suicidal, but she hadn't. Because Julia wouldn't allow it. She was moving forward before Sydney could even gather the strength to open her eyes and see where she was going. They were entirely merged, never two separate women, but Julia's persona could be the protective shell when Sydney wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and weep.

She wondered where Sark had bought this couch. It was incredibly comfortable, really . . . and she was just so tired from last night . . .

"Julia?"

She turned her head but kept her fingers on the railing of the balcony. The sunset in Algeria was painting everything pink and purple and gold. "Yes?"

Simon emerged onto the small balcony, wearing a complimentary bathrobe from the hotel just as she was. He'd let her shower first. Now his hair was wet, the long part in front hanging in front of his right eye. He grinned at her. "There you are, love. I was starting to think you disappeared."

"No," she said, tucking a piece of damp blond hair behind her ear and favoring him with a slow smile. "I think I'll stick around."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't know how I got lucky enough to get this job, but I could kiss the bastard that hired me."

She walked straight up to him and looked him in the eye. She didn't feel like playing games. "Kiss me instead," she suggested, blunt and calm and reaching for the tie on his white bathrobe. They'd been building up to this moment for two days, and she wasn't in the mood for foreplay.

Because he wasn't an idiot, Simon kissed her, hard, and she met him with a ferocity that seemed to startle him at first, then excite him. They were moving back into the room, shuffling awkwardly but never breaking their embrace. She pushed his robe to the floor, ran her hands over the hard muscles in his arms. He wasn't as thin as— but her mind skipped over the name, forcing her into the present. Julia slipped out of the white terrycloth, feeling nothing but the reality of bare skin and urgent lips against hers.

They tumbled to the bed in the time-honored manner of lovers throughout the ages, tangled and squirming for the right positions. "_Now_," she ordered through gritted teeth, and he quickly obeyed. His cock slid inside her, drowning out the world, and a full-throated cry of relief erupted from her lips. He was moaning Julia's name, but she barely took notice, clinging tightly to his body and moving in time with every thrust.

"Julia," he croaked, his accent thick—and Russian.

She reared back and her mind was doused with icy horror, but the scream she felt in every fiber of her being refused to form in her throat.

Oleg Madrczyk stared down at her, bearded and scar-faced, his hands replacing Simon's on her breast, her back. "Julia," he repeated, moving inside her, leering just the way he always had, his breath hot and foul on her face.

With a desperate wail, Julia wrenched herself away—

—and Sydney slammed down on the floor in front of Sark's couch, sobbing and gasping for breath. She was shaking violently and couldn't stop. The feelings of repulsion, of utter violation, were too all-consuming to be subdued. Her fists clenched around thin air in a vain attempt to still the trembling of her fingers. Tears soaked her face, her nose was running, even her jaw was trembling uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms tightly around her abdomen.

She felt tainted—there was no other word for it. As if an indelible stain had been cast on her body and mind.

When it crossed her mind that Sark had his own bathroom on the first floor, she couldn't run to the back of the house fast enough.

She was already in his shower, undressed, being drenched by hot water before she could even come close to registering surprise that he'd left the bathroom door unlocked. At first she just stood, hunched over, still crying even though the tears washed away as quickly as they fell. Slowly she began to regain her composure, and when the wracking sobs were nothing more than occasional small jerks of her shoulders, she tried to breathe deeply, to calm down.

And once she was calm, she very calmly took the bar of soap and proceeded to wash herself until her skin burned and the water was turning cold.

One thing, at least, was abundantly clear, Sydney realized as she finally stepped out of the shower, skin salmon-pink. Her threat to Madrczyk could not be an empty promise. She _would_ kill him, if she had to hunt him down like an animal. And he would die knowing that it was Julia Thorne who killed him.

With comforting visions of Madrczyk's painful demise dancing in her head, she picked up her clothes from the floor and was about to put them on when she happened to glance up and see a robe hanging on the back of the door. Thankfully, it was dark blue, and made of a softer, thinner cloth, so it didn't shove memories of the dream back into her mind. Her train of thought was much more simple.

The robe must be Sark's.

Sark smelled good.

After carefully hanging the towel to dry, she approached the robe as if it might become hostile at any moment. Slowly, she eased it from the hook, then held it in her arms and buried her face in the cloth, inhaling deeply. It was . . . nice. Not comforting, she told herself firmly. Just very nice.

Nice enough to merit wearing it around the house, she decided. After all, Sark never had to know.

She thought about putting her clothes on first, but she hated the feeling of bulky clothing under a bathrobe. Instead, she slipped the robe on and headed upstairs with her armful of clothes to look for something more suitable. In the end, she settled on a camisole and a nice pair of black panties. It was sort of decent, as long as the robe was on over it, and it wasn't as if decency was the most pressing concern of a person in solitary confinement, anyway.

Apparently the most pressing concern was never falling asleep, lest one fall prey to one disturbing nightmare after another. With that in mind, she decided to go down to the study and read—in a very alert, wakeful fashion. Something cheerful, like _Les Miserables_ or _Wuthering Heights._

She settled for _Love in the Time of Cholera,_ mostly to brush up on her Spanish. As the soft misting rain turned into a steady downpour, Sydney nestled into Sark's armchair with the book, a bottle of vodka, and a huge bowl of recently unearthed chocolate ice cream.

When Sark arrived at the gate of the safehouse, it was nearly midnight, and the rain was coming down so fast and hard that he'd had to curb his usual driving habits to avoid a crash. Visibility was basically nonexistent—he could barely see the gate right in front of his car as he punched in the access codes. He'd called ahead, and all the guards had left except for the team leader, Gonzales, who was huddling rather pitifully by the front door, trying to look vigilant.

He stepped out of the car and was immediately drenched. The ground felt like several inches of swamp. This, he recalled, was what he _didn't_ like about Ireland.

"Hello, sir!" Gonzales yelled above the rain. He was still barely audible.

Sark waited until he was closer to speak. "Any complications?"

"None, sir! Everything was fine when I checked in on her, about four hours ago."

"Very well. If you'll return the sensor equipment, please. The deposit to your account has already been made."

"Thank you, sir. Pleasure working with you!" Gonzales added, unconvincingly, as he squelched his way to his own vehicle.

Since it was so late, Sark assumed that Sydney would be asleep, so he didn't bother checking the sensors. He did, however, draw the Ruger P-89 from his shoulder holster, and had it cocked and ready to fire as he stepped through the front door. As if, had she tried something, he wouldn't have hesitated.

It never became an issue, because she was nowhere to be seen. Aside from the rain pounding on the roof, the house was quiet and tranquil. Of course, most things not involving hostile gunfire seemed pretty tranquil when he finished a job. And how was it, he wondered, that he could possibly be seated near a screaming child _every time_ he traveled in a commercial airline? He was beginning to consider emulating Sloane and buying his own private plane.

In the foyer, he immediately took off his shoes and hung his dripping coat on the rack. Aside from six inches at the bottom of each pant leg, the rest of his clothing had remained relatively dry. He wiped rain from his face with one hand and tried not to feel quite so drained.

After double-checking that the front door was securely locked, he went straight down the hall to his bedroom. His weapon was holstered, and his brain was settling into an exhausted haze that he only allowed himself in moments of solitude. The door of his room opened at a touch, a fact he was barely alert enough to find interesting. He'd left it unlocked to see what Sydney would do in his absence; it seemed that in the morning he'd be able to find out.

He had already shucked off his jacket and set his holster on the dresser before it came to his attention that Sydney was in his bed.

She was surprisingly inconspicuous, curled up tightly on the part of the bed he generally occupied. And unless he was very much mistaken, his robe was neatly draped across the footboard. Her hair spread out fanlike across the pillow she'd appropriated.

His mouth, Sark noted, was very, very dry.

Hallucination was unlikely, given his complete lack of exposure to psychoactive drugs, but unless he performed a complete bioanalysis on those rather dodgy airline peanuts, the possibility could not be totally discarded. Delusions were also improbable, exhaustion having never provoked such a reaction in the past. It wasn't as if he hadn't had dreams before that conducted themselves rather along these lines, but when, precisely, would he have fallen asleep?

On the other hand, all tangible evidence—not to mention Occam's Razor—would indicate that he had, in fact, come home to find Sydney Bristow in his bed, looking painfully beautiful and, judging by the thin straps on her shoulders, not entirely dressed.

It was almost enough to make a man take up religion.

He removed his damp socks and tried to take stock of the situation in a clear-headed, practical way. The problem remained that it made no realistic sense for her to be sleeping here. Sark walked over to one side of the bed and looked down at her. She shouldn't be here, but she was. Apparently.

Rather than allow these circuitous thoughts to continue, he decided to take the matter into his own hands.

"Sydney," he said, quiet but firm. He leaned over to shake her shoulder, and found her skin smooth and cold to the touch. "Sydney? You need to wake up."

And wake up she did.

The kick seemed to come out of nowhere, slamming into his side and sending him crashing to the floor several feet away. His ribs throbbed in protest. In the bed, Sydney sat up, wide-eyed, her heart surely pumping enough adrenaline to fight off a man three times his size. It took a moment for her eyes to focus on him. He stood up, slowly, not wanting to merit another attack.

"Sark?" Her startled, tremulous tone should not have excited him.

"It's me."

"Sark," she repeated, shoulders slumping, covering her face with her hands for a moment. "You're back."

It was difficult, especially when her face was concealed, not to focus on her long, bare legs, or the delicate lines of her collarbone. He stepped closer, which made her raise her head again, this time just to stare at him. As often as Sydney's face could be read with ease, this was an expression he could not decipher, one he was almost certain he'd never seen cross her face before.

She extended one leg until her foot touched the floor, then used it to stand up. He moved to give her space to stand, but her fingers caught the fabric of his shirt and clenched, dragging him back, and she kissed him again. It wasn't like the first. There was nothing soft or experimental in the gesture, and the burning heat behind it seared every nerve in his body, threatening to swallow him whole. She tasted like chocolate and alcohol.

Sydney tore open the front of his shirt. He didn't particularly mind. In fact, he wasn't entirely aware that she had done it, or that he'd even been wearing a shirt a few seconds earlier. She unfastened his belt quickly and roughly. He didn't care about that, either. At the moment, most of Sark's attention was occupied by the way Sydney moaned when he sank his teeth into her soft lower lip. Her fingers on his waistband came in a very close second.

She practically threw him onto the bed as soon as his pants were discarded. After wriggling out of her own clothing, she followed, pouncing on him, her gaze nothing short of feral. Her teeth scraped across his jaw. When he flipped their positions, it was only because she allowed him to do so.

Her hands splayed out, stroking up his back. Her legs wrapped around his hips from either side, and Sark felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his world, as if the only thing tethering him to reality was the sensation of Sydney's limbs encircling his body. She ran her fingernails over his scalp—once, again. He could only moan quietly, dropping his head in surrender until his lips grazed the skin of her neck. Drawing a ragged breath, he tried to regain the offensive, pressing desperate kisses against her throat as his hands skimmed along her ribs.

She gasped—quietly, unobtrusively. The warmth of her breath ghosted along his neck. "_Sark . . ._"

God, the sound of her voice . . . wrapping around that name as if it were the most intimate of terms . . . He thought he would never be able to hear her say it again without remembering this moment—and feeling, as he did now, so utterly overwhelmed. He was drowning, enveloped by her need and his own, losing focus on the existence of anything beyond this moment.

"Sydney," he whispered, his voice breaking, and succumbed.


	13. Chapter 13

The great thing about this chapter is that it brings us closer to my favorite chapter, 15. Which is super-long and, um… super M-rated, just for a heads up. :)

Title by Fall Out Boy, quote by Michelle Branch.

**XIII. My Heart Is the Worst Kind of Weapon**

_I paced around the room.  
If I had known then that these things happen,  
would they have happened with you?_

When Sydney woke up the next morning, she remained very still until she had determined the location of Sark's body in relation to her own. Only then did she risk turning slightly to look. He was behind her, with one warm arm draped around her waist, his face incredibly peaceful. He was still sleeping deeply.

She wanted to wake him up and have him again.

It was that desire, more than anything else, that propelled her from the bed. His arm tightened around her when she moved, and he made a soft noise in his throat, but once she managed to roll out of his grip he just frowned in his sleep—a gut-wrenchingly adorable expression—and rolled over onto his back. She put her panties and camisole back on, and after a brief second of uncertainty, she donned his robe again as well.

Once she was vertical, it came to Sydney's attention that she was also a bit hung over. There was an unpleasant taste in her mouth and a dull throbbing in her skull. For the former, she shuffled up the stairs and brushed her teeth; for the latter, she took another of the painkillers she'd borrowed a few days ago.

Now she just had to work on repairing her insidious mental dysfunction, and everything would be just fine and dandy.

She had . . . she had slept with Sark, to put it delicately, though vulgar terms seemed more appropriate for what had happened last night. And now, instead of reacting in a sane fashion and freaking the hell out, she was blushing over the memory and wandering the house to keep herself from going back to his bed and doing it all over again. In that vein, she started boiling water for tea, even though she didn't really feel like drinking any.

As she waited, the tile began to chill her feet and—better late than never—reality started sinking in. Namely, that she'd just shared the bed of a murderer, her current captor, while the man she loved continued to believe that Sydney Bristow had died two years ago.

Granted, she didn't care nearly as much as she should, but neither was she still inclined to hop back into that bed.

Much like the saying that all roads led to Rome, she started thinking about Vaughn again. What would he say if he could see her now, she wondered, but a surprisingly vocal part of Sydney rejected that thought. What right did he have to say anything? Could he look her in the eye after what he'd done, with that wedding ring on his hand, and have the nerve to criticize her actions?

She had always believed that they belonged together, had faith in her conviction that no matter what happened, no matter how many seemingly insurmountable obstacles they had to overcome, they would always find each other. But he had lost that faith, if he'd ever had it. He couldn't find her if he stopped looking, if he gave up and chose an end to his mourning rather than seeking the truth. She couldn't blame him, not really, in the rare moments when she could see the situation in a rational light. But his choice had ripped her apart, and she wasn't able to forgive so easily, fair or not.

What if he did still love her? What if he left Lauren when she returned, and wanted to be with her instead?

Sydney knew what her father would say. _ He doesn't deserve you._

She wanted to contradict this, to rail against it with all her strength—to deny that any part of her thought it might be the truth.

The boiling water was kind enough to interrupt her train of thought. She decided to make two cups of tea. She would bring one to Sark, and they would sit down and talk about this like adults. He would be able to make her see the practical and professional consequences of repeating their mistake, either with his calm, businesslike demeanor or just by being Sark and breathing. Soon, he would return her to the CIA, collect his end of the bargain, and be gone.

Not for the first time, she wondered exactly what his end of the bargain was going to be. Certainly not just money. What did the U.S. government have to offer that Sark might want to have? Despite his past affiliations, she knew he wasn't a follower of Rambaldi. Not an artifact, then, unless it was for someone else.

She managed to walk the length of the hall without spilling any tea from either cup. Just as she reached the doorway, she saw Sark stirring.

As Sydney watched, he groaned almost inaudibly and opened bleary blue eyes. He appeared disoriented for a moment; then his hand reached over to the side of the bed she had recently vacated. A small 'hmph' escaped him that could have meant anything. He rolled back to where he had been lying before, staring up at the ceiling, his arm still extended. And then, to her abject horror, Sark closed his eyes and his lips curved into a small, almost _blissful_ smile.

She couldn't tiptoe back to the kitchen fast enough. Hot tea splashed liberally on both of her hands, and Sydney had to run cold water over the scalded skin as she tried to absorb this latest complication. This was . . . this was . . . extraordinarily counterproductive, was what it was.

Blissful Sark in his post-coital glow was not going to do a goddamn thing to make her see reason. In fact, it wouldn't be much of a challenge for him to have the exact opposite effect. And even though she couldn't remember any of her reasons for not going back to bed and giving him something else to smile about, she was sure that those reasons were very well thought out and compelling.

If there was one thing she hated about men, it was that the moment she let her guard down, they, combined with her predisposition to be emotional, were capable of turning her mature, rational, Ph.D-educated brain into a chaotic wreck of feelings and doubts. Meet a guy at a bar, and suddenly he's proposing to you in the most embarrassing way imaginable and you're trying to figure out how to tell him you don't actually work at any kind of bank. Try to defect to the CIA, and your handler is so kind and decent and understanding you stop caring about protocol. Get rescued from the streets of London by Julian Sark, and . . .

Well. Here she was.

Which wasn't to say, she mentally backpedaled, that this thing with Sark was comparable to her relationships with Danny and Vaughn. It was just a similar symptom of her deeper psychosis where men were concerned. There had to be some kind of defect in her ability to deal with the opposite sex.

Sydney sighed and dried her hands with a towel. "James Bond never had to deal with this shit," she muttered.

From the other end of the house came the sound of Sark's shower running. It occurred to her, belatedly, that it might be a good idea to put on actual clothing if she intended to put a kibosh on this sex thing before it got out of hand. She went back upstairs and picked out the least provocative of Julia's clothing—a pair of jeans and a brown sweater, from that mission in Ontario. The sweater was a little tight, but it would have to do.

She wondered if there was any way to return the robe without running the risk of a naked Sark and kissing and touching, and decided there was none. He could have it back later, when he was fully dressed and properly snarky.

That turned out to be sooner than she'd expected. When she came out onto the landing, he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, examining the remains of the chair with a carefully neutral air. As she approached, Sark looked up and raised his eyebrows in wordless inquiry.

"I was upset," she explained weakly, with an apologetic shrug.

He looked back at the wreckage and nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Is there anything else I should know about?"

"Well . . . I was having nightmares. That's why I was sleeping in the wrong bed; I'm sorry."

"I'm not." The way he stared right at her with those blue crystal eyes was— unsettling. She could feel her cheeks flushing, and hated it.

"Here's your robe," she said abruptly, shoving it into his hands. He was actually wearing a t-shirt today, and had she been so inclined, she could have traced every muscle in his abdomen through the thin, dark blue fabric. Jeans, too. It seemed unfair that his legs looked that good in denim. Then again, 'fair' was a concept best abandoned when dealing with Sark, if one intended to retain a modicum of sanity.

All right. This had to stop. She was sexualizing him in her mind because of what had happened last night, but that didn't have to be the case. Focus. Keep your guard up. Remember the Alamo. God, how was she supposed to keep a lid on it when she couldn't even take herself seriously?

"Do you still want those pancakes?" It came out more severely than she'd intended, but he seemed more amused than taken aback. Damn him.

"Certainly," he agreed.

Sark watched her go into the kitchen, admiring the formfitting sweater. Having seen the body it concealed in full last night, he knew there was no comparison, but being an opportunist means taking what you can get whenever it's available. He was still uncertain about how to broach the topic of what had happened with Sydney. He wasn't even entirely sure how to cope with it himself.

The next few days were critical, and anything that threatened to compromise his faculties could not be tolerated. His current sense of elation certainly fell into that category, as did the prospect of carrying on a torrid affair with Sydney Bristow. These negotiations would require a clear head.

One thing, at least, had been clarified. He'd sometimes wondered about what his own reaction would be, were he by some miracle lucky enough to act on the desires he'd harbored for several years. Would he be satisfied with a single encounter, ready to move on to other goals, or would that desire only increase in an exponential fashion? Now the question had been answered, decidedly in favor of the latter.

Unfortunately, that was the less convenient option. Any kind of continued arrangement would be highly problematic. Not only that, but there was no indication as yet that she might ever be inclined to allow the events of the previous night to repeat themselves, no matter what he might hope for.

Knowing Sydney, he had to admit the high probability that she deeply regretted last night and would do her best to incapacitate him if he brought it up.

But . . . there was always that irritating speck of doubt. What if she _didn't_ regret it? And if that were the case—

"How many do you want?"

Sydney waited impatiently for him to answer. Instead of providing a prompt reply, he walked into the kitchen at a leisurely pace and proceeded to just stand there and look at her until she was feeling thoroughly uncomfortable. She resisted the urge to fidget. "I yield to your judgment in the matter," he finally told her, and of course he made the sentence sound suggestive. The bastard was going to make her life a living hell now, wasn't he.

_Well, of course he is. What exactly did you expect? You practically assaulted him. You are never, ever going to hear the end of this._

Since there were four pancakes, her judgment concluded they should each get two. She'd rarely made pancakes before, and these didn't look quite as fluffy as the ones Francie used to make, but she was hoping the chocolate chips would make up for it.

Once again, she and Sark sat at the counter together with the fruits of her culinary labors. She put butter on hers while he started to eat his sans condiments.

"Hm. Much better," he said after swallowing the first mouthful.

Sydney, who was more of an equal-opportunity eater when it came to waffles vs. pancakes, had nothing to say.

"I've been meaning to ask," Sark went on, undeterred. "How are your memories coming along?"

"Fine. A lot better, actually."

"You said you were having nightmares."

Yet another topic she had absolutely no desire to discuss. "It was nothing," she lied, glancing over at Sark and then quickly averting her eyes again, keenly aware of him watching her. "It think it was just being alone. After what the Covenant did to me, I'm bound to have a few bad dreams."

"Did you have any last night?"

Oh, there was that blush, the one that had plagued her adolescence. "No," she replied curtly, and took a large bite of pancake.

"Interesting," was all he said. She wanted to elbow him in the throat. Instead, she remained silent and still, like a gazelle hoping to evade the notice of a prowling carnivore. The tactic seemed to garner the desired results; the rest of the meal concluded without a word passing between them.

She took both of the empty plates to the sink, but he followed her anyway. Which was fine, she told herself. Let him. If he thought he could use last night to somehow throw her off balance or play into his endgame, he was dead wrong. And if he forced her to give an explanation, she would tell him that she was just using him, the same way he was using her. It might sting his ego a little, but it wasn't as if his feelings would get hurt. It was just one stupid night.

"Sydney."

It was overrated, the idea of saying your lover's name in bed. She realized that now, as he spoke her name and all she could think about for a few blinding seconds was the way he'd said it last night, moaning it in her ear like an incantation, his voice becoming louder until he bit her shoulder to muffle his almost agonized cry, pressing his fingers not-quite-painfully into her skin.

The other benefit of the sweater was that it hid the bite mark very nicely.

"Yes?" she snapped, still bent over the dishwasher.

"Sydney, look at me."

She should have seen it coming, but she didn't. As soon as she face him, Sark kissed her. After overcoming the shock of his lips on hers and his hands on the sides of her face and his tongue tracing the corner of her mouth—and after a brief moment, which she would have fervently denied, where she let herself enjoy it—Sydney wrenched herself away, her hip colliding painfully with the counter. She tried to stop breathing so hard, and so unevenly.

Sark just watched her with his patented look of smug satisfaction. "You had some chocolate on your mouth," he informed her.

"Really," she said, skeptical and breathless. Despite all the harsh invectives that she should have launched at him, all she managed was a weak glare.

He smirked. "Maybe."

With that, he walked out of the kitchen, leaving her infuriatingly speechless. Without meaning to, she raised a hand to her lips. They were inappropriately tingly and were still protesting to her rational mind that they hadn't been done kissing Sark, thank you very much.

Sydney wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and told her libido to shut its lousy face.

On second thought, she withdrew her plate from the dishwasher and proceeded to make herself a third pancake. There was batter left over, despite the small amount she'd made, and she was still hungry. Besides, Sark wouldn't return so soon after his maddening grand exit. She would be able to cook and eat the pancake in peace. Only briefly did she wonder where he had gone, and why.

A couple minutes later she got her answer. As she buttered her pancake, Sark emerged from his room, talking on his cell phone, and just as quickly disappeared into the room across from the study that was constantly locked. She heard something that sounded like "if any of the other couriers have been comrsdr…", followed by a sound reminiscent of a large deadbolt being pulled into place. How enchantingly cryptic of him.

On the other hand, this did leave his room open for investigation. She'd disgraced her status as a CIA agent last night by . . . well, by fucking Sark. But also by completely failing to surveil his bedroom when given ample opportunity. Instead she'd just followed some inexplicable instinct and curled up in his bed, because—mortifyingly—when she slept on those sheets that had a ridiculously high thread count and smelled just like him, the nightmares didn't touch her.

Now could be her chance to redeem herself, at least for the second transgression. The fucking might require multiple complex acts of penance.

It would be so much simpler, she thought, if he weren't so damn good-looking. There were so many hideous, repulsive bad guys out there, and still she managed to be trapped with Sark, who, along with being a heartless killer, was one of the most beautiful men she'd ever seen.

She snatched up his robe from where he'd left it on the dining room table. If he caught her, she could use returning it as her excuse. Though, to be honest, an excuse would be pretty pointless. If he didn't expect her to be snooping around, he was seriously losing his edge. She still stepped quietly down the hallway, just in case. If nothing else, maybe she could steal the gun he'd left on the dresser and hide it away for later.

Unfortunately, but not entirely unexpectedly, the gun was nowhere to be seen. After checking behind the Rembrandt to satisfy her own curiosity—nothing but blank wall, as she'd suspected—Sydney moved swiftly and efficiently to the contents of Sark's desk. Most of the drawers were locked, and the ones that opened contained nothing but mundane office supplies. The wide, thin drawer above the leg space had a stack of bills for the safehouse, all of them at least three years old. She was about to shut the drawer and move on to the closet when something smaller, poking out from under the letter-size papers, caught her eye.

After a quick glance to the empty doorway, she caught the object between her fingernail and thumbnail and drew it out. It was a grainy black and white photograph, the sort of surveillance footage she'd seen countless times before. The only difference was the content. Her stomach twisted with disgust as she dropped it unceremoniously on the top of the desk. What kind of sick, pornographic crap _was_ this?

Naturally, that was the moment Sydney recognized her own face.

It was shadowy, pixelated, but still distinguishable. Simon was a little harder to identify, blurred with movement, but you could tell it was him if you knew what to look for. Which she did, having been there. Krasnodar, seven months ago. That hotel with the little decorative green pillow on the bed.

She heard Sark's footsteps approaching, but she didn't budge. She just stared down at the picture and waited, taking deep slow breaths and trying to make sense of the numbness enveloping her mind. In her peripheral vision, she saw him enter the doorway.

She had no idea what kind of expression was on her face, but when she looked up at Sark, he stopped in his tracks.

"Sydney—"

"Nice picture," she interrupted. "Where'd you get it?"

He eyed her warily. Good. "A contact in the Ukraine."

"Huh." Her gaze flickered to the picture and back to him. "Never really had you pegged as a peeping tom, Mr. Sark." Sydney's flat tone filled the air like a toxin, dark and lethal.

The twitch at the corner of his eye was almost like a flinch. He said nothing, because there was no plausible way to respond.

"I guess this explains a lot, though, doesn't it? I assume this is how you confirmed that I was Julia Thorne. Not only that, but you—" Her voice caught in her throat, but she recovered quickly. "Was that your plan? Just keep me here and wait for me to _throw_ myself at you?!"

Sark narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to one side. "Sydney, there is no need to overreact. The picture served only as a means of identification. Your sex life" –he said the phrase carefully, as if it might break in his mouth— "is none of my business."

"Damn right it isn't," she agreed with a vehemence that surprised even herself. "And it never will be."

The muscles in Sark's jaw clenched visibly. "Thank you for clarifying."

"You're welcome. Ugh, why the hell would you even have this?" Her lip curled with revulsion as she looked back down at the photo.

"You know the answer to that. I don't see why—"

"Because _I don't want you to see it_!" Sydney exploded. "_I_ don't even want to see it! What, do you think I'm _proud_ of this?"

She paused, letting silence fill the room before speaking again. Her voice was quieter, but no less fierce. "You probably figured it was just a matter of time, didn't you? What with me being such a _loose woman._ And after all, you're just so damn charming."

His mouth opened, as if he were about to reply, but then those crooked lips twitched and suddenly he was laughing. It was a husky, cheerful sound she'd never heard before, and actually quite pleasant, but it enraged her all the same. She remained firmly immune to Sark's endearingly delighted expression as he raised one hand to rub the back of his neck. "I'm sorry," he said, the sentiment contradicted by his wide grin. "I don't mean to laugh, I just— this entire situation strikes me as absolutely ridiculous."

He was not cute. He was not cute.

"You think this is _funny_? This is—"

Sark finally closed the gap between them and put his hands around her neck, his thumbs resting on either side of her chin. She automatically reached up and grabbed his wrists to keep him from applying pressure, because it should have been a threatening gesture, but that wasn't at all how it felt.

"Yes, Sydney," he told her, still fighting off that smile. "I do. What you've done in the last two years isn't my concern. You can do whatever you like with that picture. Tear it up. Burn it. Eat it. Send it to Mr. Vaughn as a postcard."

Okay, he was cute. Sydney couldn't entirely suppress her snort of laughter.

"I thought you might overreact if you saw the picture, which is why I wasn't entirely forthcoming about it." One of his thumbs was slowly stroking back and forth on her cheek. She wasn't sure he even realized he was doing it. "It had no impact on my high regard for you as an operative. Nor did I attribute the . . . events of last night to any sort of loose virtue on your part." The bastard's lips twitched again, the pressed together thoughtfully. "However . . ."

"What?" she demanded, immediately hostile.

He dropped his hands and turned to take the photograph from where it lay on the desk. "If you ever had any desire to attempt this position again, I must admit I'd be quite willing." His eyes, sparkling ice-blue and full of mischief, caught hers. "It looks very . . . enticing."

Sydney wondered if she could break his neck before embarrassment killed her. "In your dreams," she growled. Her face, she knew, was turning red.

He appeared to consider this before qualifying her statement. "Only the very good ones."

And somehow, instead of wanting to kick his legs out from under him, Sydney was nearly overwhelmed by a wave of gratitude. Whether or not Sark realized how deeply conflicted she felt about her past with Simon, he'd managed to effectively lift her spirits.

The truth was that she didn't want anyone to know about her and Simon. Their relationship, such as it was, had existed only in the fallout of her learning that Vaughn had moved on to another woman. And there she was, as Julia Thorne, and there was Simon, easygoing and good-natured, the kind of man that would have made her rebellious teenage self weak in the knees. It was simple, physical and almost entirely uncomplicated.

She didn't regret it, but all the same, she wasn't proud of it. Quite the opposite, in fact. And now, to find evidence of that affair in the most crude way imaginable, here in the house that had become both prison and sanctuary . . . well, Sark's unexpectedly infectious laughter couldn't have come at a better time.

Sark was still waiting for a response, expecting something along the lines of a slap in the face, when Sydney leaned in and kissed him swiftly on the cheek. He managed not to immediately touch the place her lips had brushed, as he generally tried to avoid acting like a giddy schoolboy. Still, he couldn't help but wonder when—if ever—he would cease to be utterly blindsided by these unexpected actions of hers.

"Thank you," she said. Her tone was sincere, but she offered no further explanation.

"You're welcome," he replied evenly. It seemed like the safest bet.

"I'm going to read in the study for a while." Sydney crumpled up the picture, dropped it in the wastebasket, and slipped out of the room. He offered no response, because it seemed to him that the wisest course of action would involve placing a certain amount of distance between them, both physical and mental. A clear head would be required for the negotiations this evening, and if there was one thing that Sydney did not promote in him of late, it was a clear head.

Deep down—actually, not that deep down at all—he knew that this entire situation was rapidly deteriorating into an unacceptable state of affairs. Bristow was skillfully worming her way past his defenses; whether intentionally or not was anyone's guess. As a woman for whom he'd carried a proverbial torch for several years, she was unusually well-equipped for the task.

_Loose woman._ Sark couldn't help smiling again. He couldn't quite imagine a woman he'd met who fit that description _less_ than Sydney. Well, excluding those nuns whose acquaintance he'd made when he was impersonating a cleric, but even a few of them had been a little overfriendly. Sydney might wear the costumes—and wear them well—but in the end there was an inexplicable wholesomeness to her which had clearly not been inherited from either of her parents. Though, on the other hand . . . that picture of her certainly raised a fascinating counterpoint.

Sark sighed exasperatedly and ran a hand over his face. _Remove your mind from the gutter, Julian, and do it now._ Now that he had the room to himself, there was business to attend to. This was hardly the time to be entertaining such inappropriate thoughts.

He had set up an intricate network of his most reliable contacts and couriers for this operation, and thus far they had not disappointed. The initial delivery to the inter-agency Rotunda office in Los Angeles had been carried out promptly, with no unwelcome surprises. It was unfortunate that Malraux had been compromised, but the CIA's attempt to trace the delivery routes was something Sark had anticipated.

The network had also relayed the CIA's response: a phone number for him to use for the initial contact. It was possible that a high-ranking outsider had been pulled in, but he doubted it. In all likelihood, he would be speaking to Director Dixon. He did not, therefore, expect a very cordial conversation.

While he'd been away on the recent contract, his network had also provided him with something he'd been seeking since his escape from prison: video footage of Andrian Lazarey's murder. The unexpected development with Sydney had prevented him from watching it, but Sark resolved to allow no further delays. Once Bristow had been returned to the CIA, he intended to focus his considerable energies on locating his father's killer.

With that goal in mind, he locked both doors to his bedroom and took out a laptop from its locked desk drawer. After extracting the small disc from the pocket of the pants he'd been wearing the night before, he inserted it into the computer and waited for the video to load.

The poor-quality black and white feed of Lazarey's office reminded him uncomfortably of the surveillance he'd commissioned several years ago. The scene was completely uneventful for nearly a minute before Lazarey's head jerked up, as if someone had knocked on the door. It was almost impossible to read the clock on the wall, but when the varying quality of the video was at its best, it seemed to be about three o'clock.

His father went to the door, dropping out of the video, and then returned to visual range accompanied by a blond woman. There was no audio, but they appeared to be speaking. Lazarey turned away from the woman, toward his desk, as if to reach for something.

Sark watched the woman slip a blade into her hand from her sleeve. He refused to acknowledge the way his shoulders jerked forward slightly as she wrapped her fingers around the handle and raised the knife, slitting Lazarey's throat in one efficient movement. Then came the moment he'd been waiting for. Having wiped her knife clean on the lapel of Lazarey's suit jacket, she turned to face the camera.

He paused the video and leaned close to the screen, trying to distill every possible detail from the image. She was younger than he'd expected, and if not quite beautiful, then at least possessing physical attributes that might make a man consider her so. Her lips were pursed, and her blond hair was belied by heavy, dark eyebrows, drawn together in grim distaste. This, if Sydney's intel could be trusted, was the Covenant's operative.

This safehouse lacked the face-recognition technology necessary to make a positive ID, but he did have ways of gaining access to facilities that could give him the information he needed. After that, locating this woman should become a relatively simple task.

Until then, however, he had a much less simple task to attend to, involving a CIA agent who was proving to be entirely too intoxicating for her own good. He couldn't help wondering—once again—if Sydney was actually capable of having a detrimental effect on his sanity.

Without visible hesitation, Sark unlocked the door and walked down the hall toward the study.


	14. Chapter 14

Title by Fall Out Boy, quote from The Road to El Dorado.

**XIV. Calm Before the Storm**

"_I'm not sure I trust you."  
_"_Well… I'm not really asking you to __trust__ me, am I?"_

Sydney looked up when Sark entered the room, and was glad that she'd resisted the urge to sit in 'his' chair. Sleeping in his bed was quite enough furniture-poaching for the time being. Besides, she would have felt obligated to get out of the chair, and then Sark would have felt obligated to tell her she could stay there, and it would culminate in a veritable quagmire of awkwardness. Or Sark would just draw a gun and tell her to get the fuck off his chair. Such was the charmingingly unpredictable nature of the contract killer.

She was understandably surprised when he sat on the couch with her instead.

He didn't say a word. In fact, he was reaching for the book he'd left on the table several days ago when Sydney was overcome by a bout of honesty that she was almost certain to later regret. "Sark." He looked at her, but she fixed her gaze on her knee, running a fingernail along the ridges in the denim. "I think there's something I should tell you."

"Go on." His tone prompted her to glance up simply because it was so devoid of feeling, but it wasn't as if his face was more informative.

"I . . . saw the video. Of your father."

"What video?" he asked, a sudden terseness underlying his words.

Despite having introduced the topic, Sydney had no idea what was going on. What other video could she be referring to? "The DVD in your living room," she clarified, scrutinizing his face even more carefully in case he gave anything away. "The surveillance of Lazarey; I think it's a few years old."

"Ah." Sark's face was utterly closed off. She couldn't tell if he was furious, relieved, or ambivalent. "I imagine I forgot to relocate the disc when we arrived. A careless move on my part, but as I'm sure you noticed, the surveillance contains no valuable intelligence. What interests me, however—" and here he twisted his upper body to face her "—is that you felt the need to inform me."

Well, fine. If he was going to be haughty, she could throw it right back at him. Stern CIA agent Sydney was easily summoned, slipped on like a comfortable old coat. "I didn't want you to think that I intended to invade your privacy," she retorted. "I found it while you were gone. I was looking for something to do while I was locked up in this empty house."

"I didn't realize that captivity was usually such a lenient and entertaining experience for you." The hint of a sneer on Sark's face was undoubtedly real, but she got the feeling he was trying to steer the conversation into different territory. Namely, an argument. That alone was enough to capture her interest.

"Why do you have that footage, then? If it 'contains no valuable intelligence.'"

Her ability to interpret his tiny, subtle expressions was improving; she could tell that he wanted to smile at least a little at her dead-on imitation of his accent.

Once that brief twitch of amusement faded, however, he simply regarded her pensively. "I confirmed several years ago that Andrian Lazarey was, in fact, my father," he eventually replied. "Obtaining those videos was simply demonstrative of a certain degree of curiosity—understandable, I believe, under the circumstances. As your mother was even more deeply elusive, I don't doubt it's a sentiment you can readily comprehend."

"I guess so," she conceded, attempting to remain guarded while feeling something disturbingly like empathy.

Sark gazed at one of the bookshelves in the same way that another person might bite their lip or fidget absently with their hands. If nothing else, the man was a study in minimalism. When he looked back at Sydney, his focus was once again intact. "I met him once. Lazarey. About three years ago, after receiving the surveillance, I traveled to Moscow."

She wanted to ask him to repeat himself, but knew she'd heard correctly the first time. So she said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate.

"It's ironic, really," he mused. "My previous visit to Moscow had been a rendezvous with K-Directorate on behalf of your mother. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my father's workplace was only a few blocks away. It was within my means to locate him years earlier, I'm sure, and I'm afraid my failure to do so was not a result of difficulty in obtaining relevant intelligence, but my own halfheartedness. I always found myself . . . somewhat reluctant to rediscover my father."

Dear god. Sark was actually _confiding_ in her. She was afraid to move an inch, but she wanted to run away with her hands over her ears, to block out this fragile moment that threatened everything she knew to be true about him. And yet, she was dying to hear more.

"So what happened? When you met?"

It was his usual smirk, the idiosyncratic movement of his lips, but something about it was wrong. Something about it made her want to hold him in her arms and tell him that everything would be okay. She just couldn't figure out why. After all, it was just his usual smirk.

"Nothing in particular. We spoke only for a moment, on the street." The smirk widened, belied by the twitch in his jaw. "He had business to attend to."

Sydney knew her disbelief was clearly written across her face. "After all those years?"

"Well, it certainly could have been worse. He could have shot me."

"That was just to—" She quickly gave up trying to concoct an excuse for her mother, and returned to the matter at hand. "I can't believe he just—"

Sark held up a hand, effectively silencing her. "I should mention," he added, "that I never told Lazarey who I was."

"Why not?"

He looked her in the eye as he spoke, and she found herself wishing that he wouldn't. "A rather childish fancy, I admit. I suppose that despite the passage of time, I rather foolishly entertained the notion that my father might recognize me on sight. Such was clearly not the case."

For a while, she didn't know what to say, but eventually Sydney gave up on speaking. Instead, she leaned forward, reaching out until her hand reached the side of his face. She trailed her fingers slowly down his temple and jaw, and Sark's eyes fluttered shut; otherwise he remained motionless. With a certain sense of inevitability, she knew she would move closer soon to kiss him, and she did nothing to prevent it.

Then Sark reached up with surprising lightness and removed her hand.

"Sydney," he said, and his voice was jarringly formal.

_Oh shit,_ was all she could think. _Here it comes._

The sinking sensation in Sydney's gut was similar to the feeling she used to get when her father said things like _Sydney, there's something we need to discuss_. A very unpleasant feeling, and one she'd never been eager to re-experience.

Not that she thought Sark was about to express anything like paternal disappointment. Far from it. No, this was The Talk. The one she'd been dead set on having earlier this morning, but now she was experiencing an unexpectedly strong reluctance to go anywhere near it. But it had to be done, and soon, or she would basically be telling him that she wouldn't mind sleeping with him again. And she didn't want that, did she?

Did she?

"Yes, Sark," she replied. She turned more fully on her cushion to face him, spine straight and face—hopefully—inscrutable.

He hesitated, and Sydney decided to bite the bullet and get the whole thing over with.

"Look, if this is about last night—I think we can both agree that it was a mistake. I mean, considering our whole . . . situation—and everything else, really—no offense, but you're the last person I should be sleeping with right now. It's inconsistent, I know, because I realize I'm the one who kind of . . . got things started last night, and I apologize for not being more clear. But I think we can both agree that it shouldn't happen again."

Sark made his thoughtful face, lips pressed together and widened eyes off to the side. Then his gaze flicked back to her. "No." His verdict was delivered in a quiet, amiable tone, but without an ounce of equivocation.

"What—" Sydney spluttered, completely unprepared for dissent. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I thought my meaning was rather obvious," he replied mildly.

"So you think we should just—_keep having sex?_" In her bewildered state, all euphemisms abandoned her.

"Yes," he confirmed. Sark's blue eyes stared guilelessly into hers. "Sydney, I am . . ." He paused, giving her the impression that he was considering his next words very carefully. "It's obvious to me that there exists an attraction between us, as much as you might deny it."

"I'm not denying it." That, at least, was solid ground. God knows she'd had enough time to agonize over it.

He didn't blink, barely even twitched, but somehow she thought he seemed surprised. "Ah."

"I'm just saying that we don't have to _act_ on it."

The look he gave her was bemusement at its finest. "In my opinion, Sydney, the effort that would be expended in avoiding further encounters would be far greater than the complications which might arise from . . . giving into temptation, as it were."

She narrowed her eyes and attempted to process this. Was Sark actually admitting that he wanted to sleep with her _that_ badly? Doubtful. Unless he just really wanted sex in general, and she was the only readily available female. But was he so deluded that he couldn't see what a huge mess everything would become? Or could he possibly be counting on her to form an emotional attachment that would somehow play into his ultimate goals?

This was just one of the problems of having sex with Sark. Even if he wasn't playing some kind of game with her, she still kept trying to figure out the rules.

Another problem was the little voice in her head saying '_what the hell—who cares?_'

"Fine," she agreed so abruptly that Sark was discernibly startled. Sydney swiftly maneuvered herself to his side of the couch, then swung a knee over him, effectively crawling into his lap. He remained completely motionless, but she could have sworn his pupils dilated visibly.

"Sydney," he began, in a careful voice almost—but not quite—like his own. "What are you doing?"

Rather than answer right away, she leaned in, breathing in the scent of his neck, and pressed a kiss to his jugular.

"Giving in to temptation," she murmured. "Since you're such a big fan of the idea." His pulse was racing beneath her lips. He turned his head, and she obligingly slipped her tongue into his mouth, savoring his quiet groan.

One of his hands reached up and started to weave through her hair, which reminded her of the point she'd been trying to make. She reared back and lifted Sark's chin with her fingers, forcing his glazed eyes to look in her direction. "Tell me this doesn't make things more complicated," she challenged.

At that moment, his face was almost open, devoid of his usual defenses, and she was almost certain that he knew she was right.

"I don't care," he replied thoughtfully, utterly destroying her strategy.

He sat up just enough to kiss her. "I believe you and I are sufficiently skilled as operatives to work around a physical relationship," he breathed against her lips, caressing her cheek with his fingertips. "And after all . . . the arrangement would only be temporary."

It did nothing for her argument to kiss him back, but she did it anyway. After a few moments, however, she sensed that his mind was elsewhere.

"What is it?" she asked, a little irritated. If he was going to argue for this 'arrangement', he could at least pay attention while she was kissing him.

"Nothing." The tiny smile playing about his lips was a clear indication that he was lying. "I just had a rather interesting idea."

"Which you're not going to tell me," Sydney guessed.

"Correct."

He was relentlessly aggravating. Infuriating, even. Controlling, manipulative, and secretive to boot. None of this, however, explained the fact that half an hour later, Sydney was back to reading her book, this time with Sark's head resting in her lap. From time to time, she ran the fingers of her free hand across his closely shorn scalp. She still wished his hair was a little longer, but the current length felt nice. Judging by his contented sighs, the feeling was mutual.

Sark lay on his back, alternating between reading his copy of _The Brothers Karamazov_ and closing his eyes in enjoyment of her absent-minded petting. If Sydney had been of a mind to analyze the situation, she knew it would be fraught with exactly the type of complication she'd been striving to avoid.

But all in all . . . not such a bad way to pass the afternoon. And aside from her trip to the kitchen for sandwiches and a bottle of wine, it passed peacefully and uninterrupted until a little before six, when Sark checked his watch, put his book on the table and stood up. After so many hours, her empty lap felt strange.

"Let me guess," she said, and was delayed by a yawn. "You have business to attend to."

True to form, he smirked, nodded, and exited the room.

Once safely ensonced in the control room, Sark took one of his unused, untraceable cell phones out of its cellophane wrapping. He dialed the secure line he'd been given this morning and waited patiently for an answer.

"Hello." The greeting was, typically, voiced as a question, but the speaker's air of authority made it a statement.

"Mr. Dixon," he said, unperturbed. "It has been a while, hasn't it?"

"Sark." There it was, the flat, venom-laced voice of hatred. It put him back on the solid ground that was, with Sydney, so fleeting.

"I assume you've received my little gift, and are willing to make a deal."

"You son of a bitch," hissed Dixon, which actually startled him. The Marcus Dixon he'd encountered at SD-6 had lacked this ill-concealed fury bubbling just beneath the surface. Sark speculated that it was a direct result of Sloane's vengeful assassination of Diane Dixon, but there was no way to be certain. Also, Dixon was undoubtedly very emotional over the revelation that his former partner was both alive and in the hands of the enemy. The strong bond between he and Bristow was undeniable, and very little seemed to provoke these CIA agents like their inability to help one of their own.

He said nothing, a tactic which had served him well in the past.

"What are your terms, Mr. Sark?" A new, weary voice, even more instantly recognizable.

"Agent Kendall. What a delightful reunion. Are there more introductions to be made, or may we proceed with the negotiations?"

"Go ahead." Kendall might have the bedside manner of an ill-tempered bulldog, but he was all business. It was a trait Sark appreciated in an opponent.

"Very well. For the safe return of Agent Bristow, I will require complete amnesty from your government, as well as a formal apology for my two years' imprisonment. I will expect the CIA to turn a blind eye to all my future operations. Also, you will deposit ten million dollars into one of my bank accounts in Switzerland, and order the immediate assassination of one McKenas Cole."

He almost hadn't included the last demand, but what the hell. Who said extortion couldn't be fun?

Dixon's eruption was predictable and swift. "Are you out of your _mind_, you—"

"Dixon." Kendall spoke in an undertone, but he was still audible. He imbued the two syllables with enough warning to halt Dixon's tirade.

"All right, Mr. Sark," he continued. "We both know I can't agree to those demands, so why don't you tell me what you're really after and we'll go from there."

He was glad that Kendall was on the line. The DSR agent posing as FBI had been one of his primary interrogators, and Sark had developed a certain respect for Kendall's particularly perceptive brand of no-bullshit transactions. It had certainly been better than some of the less stable CIA agents, who doubtless would have considered breaking his face an appropriately expedient means of extracting information.

"Well met, Agent Kendall," he conceded lightly, settling into the room's only chair. "Let's get down to business, then, shall we?"

It was nearly an hour later when he finally emerged, feeling both drained and grimly victorious. He found Sydney in the second spare bedroom, which she was carefully examining from floor to ceiling. "There you are," she said, making no effort to conceal or explain the fact that she was screwing the vent back onto the wall with her thumbnail. "Any luck? Or are you going to have to dump my body into the English Channel?"

Normally, such flippancy from a prisoner would have irked him. On some level, it still did, but his recent successes had left Sark in a relatively good mood. "It went well," he informed her. "There are still arrangements to be made, but I believe the exchange will take place in approximately two weeks, barring any serious complications."

Sydney nodded. As CIA, she would know how negotiations like these went, and know that the Los Angeles office couldn't just agree to Sark's demands without consulting Langley and getting through all kinds of red tape. "Good," she said, but almost the moment the word was past her lips she appeared lost in thought, her eyes darting all around the room without actually looking at anything. Her mouth opened, almost as if to speak, then spread slightly in a smile that seemed utterly out of place on the Sydney Bristow he knew. A smile that promised excitement, with a side order of grievous bodily harm.

Whatever ideas were filling her head, he resolved to be well armed when she put them into action.

"Two weeks, you said?" she asked without warning.

"Yes."

Her eyes were glowing, practically burning their way into his, and an unspoken worry in Sark's mind dissipated in an instant. Here was Sydney Bristow in her element, as she was meant to be, embodying all the dangerous beauty of a hunting panther. No half-witted neurologist could tamper with that.

_Now __this_, thought Sark,_ is the woman who stabbed me with an ice pick._

In his mind, this was not alarming, but comforting. And, were he to be completely honest with himself, it was also incredibly alluring.

Sydney approached him deliberately, with the air of a woman who knew her own power, who was ready and willing to use that power to its fullest extent. It reminded him once again that she might be CIA, and she might be loyal, noble and selfless . . . but she was also a Derevko. And blood ties had a way of binding anyone's destiny, let alone the fate of the alleged Chosen One. She stopped only a few inches away from him, and that smile returned with a vengeance.

"What do you say," she suggested, "we make a few stops along the way?"

On the one hand, this could be suicide. A ruse, a trap, an elaborate plot. She could be setting him up for god-knows-what.

Sark reached out and ran his fingers along the line of bare skin between her sweater and jeans. She shivered, but her stare never wavered.

On the other hand . . . it couldn't hurt to hear her out.

"What did you have in mind?"


	15. Chapter 15

Long, long, loooong chapter. My personal favorite, and a joy to write. :)

Note the change in rating, please!

Title by Arctic Monkeys, quote by Green Day. Now hang onto your seatbelts, folks...

**XV. If You Were There, Beware**

_I'm gonna burn it all down. I'm gonna rip it out. Well, everything  
__that you employ was meant for me to destroy to the ground now, so  
__don't you fuck me around, because I'll shoot you down._

Sydney threw her purse onto the bunk she'd decided to claim as her own and immediately rounded on Sark. "Please tell me the rest of our aliases are more convincing than _this_!" she hissed, ever wary of eavesdroppers, waving the passport in her hand for emphasis.

His smirk wasn't rendered more welcome by its predictability. "It seemed somehow appropriate. Also, I dare say a passenger ship to the Netherlands is hardly the most dangerous part of our journey."

The newly christened Tatiana Derevko was less than appeased. "Oh, really? Using my mother's last name at all is _insane_! We have no idea how rigorously the passenger manifests might be checked, and the name of an _international terrorist_ might be a little bit of a red flag!"

"You have to admit that the theme has a certain charm," said Sark, alias Ivan Lazarey.

"Not if it gets us caught."

She had hoped to enjoy this first alias, since it was the only one that wouldn't involve a disguise, but now it seemed that Sark's warped sense of humor was going to ruin that possibility. Rather than continue the argument, she used her foot to push her suitcase under the bunk, just to create more floor space. Her single, fairly enormous piece of luggage was full of wigs, makeup, high heels and provocative clothing, along with a few favorites she hadn't wanted to leave behind.

"Is everything in place for the meet in Amsterdam?" she asked, sitting down and reaching into a purse for her water bottle.

"Yes. Our Covenant source seems quite eager to cooperate, for a certain price."

"Gee, who does that remind me of?" She cocked an eyebrow at Sark, who naturally remained completely unruffled by the comparison.

Despite his advocacy, not much had happened between them since she'd made her proposal. Both had been working almost nonstop on logistics, contacts, and paperwork, including a small library of fake IDs for each of them. She believed the fact that they seemed to always end up sleeping snuggled together in Sark's bed was entirely her own business. It was a practical measure, after all, in that she hadn't had a single nightmare since his return.

Though last night, in the thrill of having everything ready, she might have gone slightly overboard in her expression of gratitude. She hadn't done _that_ in quite a while, but she had to admit the almost worshipful look that still lingered in Sark's eyes was actually worth it.

The idea of him being physically affectionate still struck her as bizarre, but at a certain point she'd had to accept it as reality. He would kiss her, or touch her hair, or put a hand on her waist, without seeming to give it a second thought. He _cuddled_, for god's sake. It was as if he'd read instructions on how to act in an actual relationship, rather than the more apropos Homicidal Man's Guide to Sex With the Enemy.

Perhaps more mortifying was the fact she found it so comforting. Addictive, even. There was always a sharp electricity between them, the thrill of getting away with something fundamentally ill-advised. It shouldn't have surprised Sydney. She, of all people, knew the sexual tension that arose between co-conspirators.

In all honesty, she was having the time of her life.

This entire situation was reminiscent of the nights she'd had a little too much to drink. Perhaps, when it was all over, she'd be left with nothing but regrets and a hangover, but right now she was on top of her game, living every moment and never looking back. Right now, her most prominent goals were revenge and destruction, and if her twisted connection with Sark got drawn into the mix, so be it. Introspection occupied a very low position on her list of priorities.

Since Sark was occupied with his computer, presumably double-checking their arrangements, Sydney lay down on her bunk, enjoying the feeling of the Smith & Wesson 5903 tucked in the back of her waistband. A strict truce had been established, and she wasn't about to sacrifice her objectives by breaking it, but it felt good to be armed again. As she'd suspected, Sark had unleashed a veritable arsenal of weapons from every corner of the safehouse prior to their departure.

Thanks to having had less than five hours of sleep the night before, she actually managed to fall asleep on the stiff, lumpy mattress. When she awoke, feeling completely disoriented, Sark was still sitting about a yard away on the opposite bunk, but now he was simply watching her.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked, her voice slurred by grogginess.

He shrugged slightly. "I believe we should be arriving in approximately forty-five minutes."

A pretty decent nap, then. Her back ached, but she felt significantly more rested. She stood up and stretched. Her fingers touched the low ceiling easily, and as she stood on tiptoe to press her palms against it, she was keenly aware of Sark's gaze on her body. "Like what you see?" she couldn't resist muttering.

"It would be difficult not to," he replied in a matter-of-fact way that belied the appreciative gleam in his eyes. They were dark blue in this light. Captivating.

She lowered her arms, but continued to stand and watch him.

"I meant to thank you for earlier," Sark continued, and for a horrifying moment she thought they were about to have a conversation more awkward than anything she'd ever dared to fathom. "Now that my supplier has met Olaf's wife, any doubts he may have had should be gone."

Trying not to show her relief, she shrugged. "He was a nice guy. He probably believed you anyway."

"One can never be too careful."

For lack of a better response, she shrugged again. Forty-five minutes, her mind was whispering, was a decent amount of time.

"Sydney." Sark tilted his head to one side, watching her closely. "Come here."

She wanted to. Oh, she wanted to very, very much. But there was always that streak of stubbornness and pride, the little voice that told her she would _not _take orders from him, not in a million years. Not after everything he had done. If this was going to happen, it would continue the way it had begun: on her terms, and hers alone. So she just looked at Sark, knowing he could see the challenge in her face. "Get up."

"Vengeful _and_ domineering," he commented, rising smoothly to his feet. "Fantastic."

Rather than reply, she simply waited. She'd discovered that she enjoyed it when Sark kissed her first; there was often an unexpected hesitancy to the action, as if he were still just waiting for her to punch him in the face for it. Such was the case now. He leaned in slowly, and as his lips brushed across hers Sydney developed an alternate theory: that he did it just to torture her. She sighed, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him back.

For all his initial hesitation, it certainly didn't take much encouragement to get him to put his arms around her and start doing those very interesting things with his tongue. She slipped a hand under his shirt, exploring the lines of his back, and couldn't tell if he moaned because he liked it or because her fingers were cold.

And true, it wasn't long before they ended up on his bunk anyway, but it was the principle of the thing.

His hands were in her hair, combing it back with his fingers to prevent it from falling down around their faces. Sydney turned her head and gently, almost playfully took part of his wrist in her mouth, scraping the delicate skin with her teeth. He tasted very faintly of soap.

Sark's head dropped back onto the bed, and his uneven breathing was clearly audible. She was balanced squarely on his hips, an arrangement that was quickly becoming more and more torturous for him. His other moved from her hair to her breast—and there was a knock on the door.

"W—wait, please!" Sydney choked out, barely remembering her Russian accent.

Apparently she didn't speak loudly enough. She heard the door swing open behind her, and a young male voice. "Sir, you said to—oh!"

"_You didn't bother to lock the door_?" she asked Sark in Russian, adopting a giggly, embarrassed tone to fool the Irish teenager currently standing in the doorway, doubtless wondering whether to fulfill his purpose or run like hell.

"_Clearly, he has a key,_" Sark growled back. His Russian, unsurprisingly, was flawless. "What is it?" he asked the boy.

Sydney moved to stand up in an attempt to salvage the situation, but Sark kept an arm around her waist, keeping her pressed firmly to him.

"You, er, you told me to come and tell you when we were almost there."

"Yes. Thank you. On dresser, you will find wallet," Sark told him, handling a heavy accent as deftly as he had the language itself. "Take the money inside. I trust you are discreet young man, yes?"

"Er, yes! Yes sir!" The door was swiftly shut and locked behind him. She could only imagine how much cash he'd just been given.

She looked down at Sark. "It seems I miscalculated the time of our arrival," was all he said, but the frustration in his eyes was clearly visible.

Despite her own thwarted libido, she couldn't help smiling. And, just in the interest of comaraderie, she slipped one hand between his scalp and the mattress, leaned down and gave him a slow, lingering kiss. Which led to another. And another. The mood should have been ruined beyond all hope of recapturing, but she was inciting, and he was responding. Unfortunately . . . She sighed. "We don't have time, do we?" she whispered, hoping to be contradicted.

"I'm afraid not," he confirmed. "There are certain preparations to be made."

And so, however reluctantly, she stood up, and they straightened their clothes and got to work.

**Amsterdam**

Sark surveyed the crowded nightclub and wished Sydney were next to him, if only to provide distracting conversation. The widespread penchant for arranging meetings in nightclubs was an utter mystery to him. True, the noise and chaos provided a degree of cover, but the hordes of civilians also made any kind of security enforcement a nightmare. Should such a meeting end violently, an untold number of civilian corpses was much less easily dealt with than a few bodies in an abandoned warehouse.

Besides that, the entire atmosphere always struck him as . . . vulgar. Almost obscene, at times.

Right on cue, a girl practically fell onto the arm of the questionably sanitary couch. She was clearly unaware that large crowds gave Sark an itchy trigger finger and sudden movements were extremely unwise. The scent of cigarettes and perfume permeated the air around her.

"All right, then," she giggled, leaning in until Sark was barely able to refrain from putting a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. "Care to buy us a drink?"

"Madam, I would more eagerly mainline toxic chemicals."

"What?" Her forehead creased, and then she burst out laughing and poked his shoulder. "You're funny!"

Clearly he had underestimated either her stupidity, her level of inebriation, or both. Sark nodded slightly to himself, preparing to modfy his tactics accordingly. "Allow me to clarify. First of all . . ." He trailed off and reconsidered once again. Perhaps even this explanation would fail to permeate the girl's drunken haze. What this situation required was rudeness and words without many syllables.

It seemed it was time to brush up on his little-used impersonation of an American.

"Okay, listen, lady," he began again. "You're drunk off your ass and you smell like you just came out of a whorehouse. I'm only here 'cause I'm waiting for my girlfriend to show up, so why don't you do us both a favor and get the hell outta here?"

Ah, that was the ticket. She immediately drew herself up onto her feet, albeit rather unsteadily. "You bastard!" she yelled, though the volume of the club's music and patrons almost completely drowned her out. "Where the hell do you get off—" She shifted her purse and raised a hand, presumably to slap him.

Sark looked at her and, just for a moment, allowed his carefully 'normal' façade to slip. For a split second she looked into the icy, deadened eyes of a killer.

By the time she blinked, it was gone, but her instincts told her what her brain couldn't quite process. She left in a hurry.

"_Was that entirely necessary_?" Sydney asked over the com in his ear.

He covered his mouth with one hand and vehemently replied "_Yes_," loudly enough for his voice to be picked up and transmitted.

It sounded like she was laughing. "_All right, fine. As long as . . ._" She paused, then spoke again, much more curtly. "_Possible contact in motion_."

Before Sark could carefully scrutinize the nearby patrons, another woman sat down, this time on the cushion next to him. Her suit jacket and matching skirt were a little formal, giving the setting, and she projected nervousness the same way the other woman had reeked of cigarette smoke. "The traffic is horrible this time of year," she blurted, eyeing the announcement on the small table—three olives, impaled on a toothpick, from Sark's untouched martini.

Inexperienced, he judged, or a truly stellar actress. "I would suggest you travel by train," he replied blandly.

"Oh, thank god." She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, looking utterly relieved.

"_On my way_," said Sydney.

"My partner will be joining us in a moment," he told the woman, and extended his hand. "I'm Mr. Sark."

"Annika Hals. It's, uh, nice to meet you." Her handshake was clammy and limp. "I was worried I would walk up to the wrong person."

There was movement to the right side of the couch, on the other side of Annika, and though his attention never visibly wavered from their skittish contact, a strictly compartmentalized part of his mind was thoroughly distracted by certain aspects of Sydney's appearance. Namely, her breasts. The hem of her dress actually reached all the way to her knees, but the black fabric was skintight and the square neckline plunged in an extremely provocative fashion.

It wasn't nearly enough to affect Sark's focus on the task at hand. It was just enough to make him look forward to when that task was complete.

"Nice evening," Sydney commented, perching on the table directly in front of Annika. "Are you ready to do business?"

"Oh my god!" The other woman looked ready to vault over the back of the couch to escape. Sark put an arm around her shoulders—presumably a friendly gesture, but he held her firmly in place. Annika was literally quaking with terror, her wide eyes fixed on Sydney's face. Even with the short two-toned red and black wig, it was clear that their Covenant contact knew the face of Julia Thorne.

This was why Sydney hadn't been in place for the initial greeting; she'd worried that her presence could be enough to scare off their informant. Apparently, she'd been right. Though Miss Hals struck him as someone rather easily frightened, Sark found himself increasingly intrigued by this alter ego of Sydney's who was capable of inspiring such total dread. Julia was the Covenant's prize assassin, according to Bristow, and it seemed her reputation was large and menacing.

Annika clearly wanted nothing more than to escape. She was wriggling desperately in Sark's grip. "Please—let me go!"

"Sit back and shut up," Sydney snarled, and to his surprise, the order was instantly obeyed.

The woman's eyes darted between the two of them. Her lip was trembling. "Please . . ." Her voice wavered. "Please don't kill me."

"All you have to do is cooperate, and you'll walk out of here in one piece. You have my word."

He found himself grateful that Sydney had insisted on taking point in the transaction. It allowed him the opportunity to study her actions now, because he strongly suspected, taking in the unfamiliar commanding posture and the dangerous look in her eyes, that he was meeting Julia Thorne for the very first time.

Now, she leaned forward and stared Annika straight in the eye. "I know all about the project you were working on. I know what the Covenant is trying to create, and I will _not_ allow it to go forward." She adjusted her ring, the signal they had pre-arranged, and Sark moved closer to Hals, pressing the barrel of his gun against her ribs. Annika was quickly turning deathly pale. "If you value your life," Sydney continued, "you will give me the location of the lab."

"I'm just a nurse!" she said, verge of tears. "I—I only work for them because they—"

"Not interested," Sydney interruped. Sark was certain that only he had noticed the brief flash of pity in her otherwise merciless eyes. "Tell me. Now."

He adjusted his gun, aiming it at Annika's vital organs with deadly precision.

Words spilled out of her lips so quickly that it was hard to distinguish what she was saying. "They sent the specimens to a location in Patagonia! An abandoned building, near the mountains! That is all I know, I swear! Please . . ." She cringed away from both of them, into the corner of the couch. "Please, don't . . ."

For a while, Sydney didn't speak; she just gazed contemptuously at their informant. Then she nodded to Sark, and he holstered the gun.

"One more thing," she interjected, just as Annika took a deep, sobbing breath of pure relief. "Then you'll get your payment."

Her consent was instantaneous, driven by a strong survival instinct. "Anything."

Sydney leaned forward again, until she was close enough that Sark could faintly smell her perfume. Unlike the overpowering scent of the girl he'd encountered earlier, it created in him a powerful desire to move even closer. A desire that was quickly pushed aside as he forced himself to concentrate on her next words.

"Where," Sydney asked in the tone of one who will not bother to ask again, "is Oleg Madrczyk?"

They were staying in a hotel several blocks away, a distance that seemed almost interminable to Sydney. The meeting had taken her mind off of it to an extent, but the fact remained that she'd spent almost the entire day wanting Sark, and seeing him in the club, looking absolutely edible as he sat on that couch, had done nothing for her state of mind. Now that she was done spouting death threats at helpless lackeys, it was about time she clocked out for the day.

As they waited for the elevator, she took a few deep breaths through her nose. There were limits to even the most hardened agent's self-control, and she had resolved that once they got inside their room, all bets were off. And if some stupid teenager barged in again, they could damn well enjoy the show.

Aside from them, the elevator was empty. Before she could even turn to look at Sark, his arm snaked around her waist, pulling her back against him. _Oh,_ she realized, her face flushing. Speaking of 'hardened.' He brushed his face against the back of her neck, inhaling deeply.

"Julia Thorne is a fascinating individual," he murmured.

"You think so?" she managed, her voice annoyingly breathy.

"Yes."

Their room, Sydney observed, was fourteen paces from the elevator. As soon as the door was shut, Sark pushed her against it, managing to fasten the locks with one hand while kissing her simultaneously. Once both hands were free, they roamed across her body, stroking her skin through the thin, tight fabric of the dress.

She was having a hard time remembering that she'd intended to at least take off her wig first. Possibly wash her face. Both considerations had all but vanished at this point. It made her feel like the heroine of a trashy bodice-ripper to notice how wet she was, but, well . . . she was.

Predictably—since he was, after all, a man—Sark's mouth trailed down her chest to the impressive cleavage created by a low-cut dress and a push-up bra. He slid his tongue between her breasts while his hips pressed urgently against hers. "Oh . . . Sark," she half-whispered, half-whimpered. It felt as if every nerve in her body had been turned into a live wire. "Just . . . just give me a minute, and I'll . . . get changed . . ."

"No." His tone brooked no opposition whatsoever. He continued to speak, his lips against Sydney's ear, making her shudder. "I will _not_ wait another moment."

She didn't exactly give her assent, but she twisted one leg around him, pressing him closer. The removal of clothing and relocation to the bed took place swiftly and without a single word spoken between them. She barely had time to adjust to being abruptly horizontal before Sark was inside her, and she cried out, putting her hand arms around his shoulders. "_Oh_ . . . oh, god . . . _Vaughn_ . . ."

The moment she said it, she dropped back against the mattress, eyes shut tightly. She felt as if her stomach had dropped completely out of her body.

Sark's fingers tightened in her hair until his grip became painful. "No," he corrected flatly, rocking in a way that made her want to scream. "I'm afraid not."

With effort, Sydney forced her eyes open. She tried to think coherently, to dredge up something—an apology, an explanation, anything. But perhaps she'd played the part of Julia too thoroughly that night, because what came out was completely different. "Dammit, Sark," she hissed. "Just fuck me."

As she looked up at him, Sark's eyes were empty, their depths reflecting no light at all. His lips twisted slightly, but she was too far gone to interpret.

"Please." She moved beneath him, willing him to understand. "Pl—"

He kissed her brutally, effectively silencing her, and proceeded to obey her request. His movements were harsh, almost punishing in their intensity, and she didn't know if she was moaning in pain or pleasure until she came, the noise in her throat between a sob and a scream—just before Sark, who slammed his release into her, his teeth biting down on her lip with enough force to draw blood. He pushed himself away from her as soon as he was physically capable of doing so.

That was the first night that they slept on separate halves of the bed. Sydney curled up on her side, unable to stop the tears escaping from her eyes.

It hurt.

Not in the way he had wanted it to—aside from her bleeding lip, there were actually circumstances under which she would have enjoyed what had just passed between them. But not like this. Her chest ached with unspeakable loss and regret. She thought she'd put it all out of her mind, the grief and the longing for a man who'd left her behind. Now here it was, back with a vengeance, just in time to ruin what little happiness she'd been able to find.

Her sleep was fitful, and haunted by old phantoms.

The next morning, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, surveying the damage through red-rimmed eyes. There was a bruise forming on one of her arms, roughly in the shape of a hand. As she poked at it, the door opened, and Sark stepped inside.

Sydney just stared at him, at a loss for words. In the harsh light of the hotel bathroom, he didn't look any more rested than she did. Even his eyes looked washed-out, a tired, faded grey. He took a washcloth from the rack and dampened it in the sink, then stepped close, dabbing at the dried blood on her mouth with a gentleness that made her want to cry all over again. Then he set the stained cloth back down and took her face between his hands.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, and kissed her forehead. They never spoke of it again.

**Graz**

When she'd adopted Julia's blond hair, Sydney had never worn a wig. Instead, she'd bleached her own hair as part of the new identity she'd been supposedly embracing. Now, however, she had no intention of repeating the process. As the car came to a halt, she fingered the strands of the long blond wig that was as close as she'd been able to come to the old hairstyle.

Sark pocketed the car keys and spoke in a startlingly rough Cockney variation of his usual accent. "You ready, love?"

Unlike Sydney, he was almost unrecognizable. Contact lenses had rendered his eyes dark brown, and his hair was tinted temporarily black. He was wearing black pants, a white tank top and a leather jacket, topped off with a fedora that suited him surprisingly well. The first time she'd seen him in his disguise, she'd done a double take, but she was slowly adjusting to it. He held himself in a way completely unlike Sark; he even had Simon's accent nailed.

"Ready," she affirmed, and they made their way toward the entrance of Das Verlustzeit Hotel.

Once they were through the doors, Sark swung a careless arm around her shoulders and surveyed the lobby. She slipped a hand into his back pocket. Her attention was focused on the man at the main desk, whose cooperation was necessary for the successful execution of Plan A.

"Julia Thorne," she announced when they reached the desk. "I'm here to get something I have in storage. Box 23."

The man took a moment to check his computer records. "Of course, Miss Thorne," he said. "Right this way."

"The problem is, I've lost my key." Sydney flashed him a bright, apologetic smile and checked his nametag. "Do you think you could open it for me . . . Franz?"

"I'm afraid it is not usually permitted . . ."

She leaned forward and placed one hand on the desk, deliberately giving him an excellent view down her low-cut shirt. "Could you check with your manager?"

"I . . ." He swallowed. "I will see what I can do."

"Thank you," she said graciously.

As Franz moved away, Sark turned Sydney to face him and pulled her close. "Lost your key?" he asked, and his ability to mimic the playful, roguish tone of a man he'd never met was nothing short of uncanny. "Now, how the hell'd you manage that?"

"Mm." She leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Didn't. Unless you count throwing it in the English Channel as losing it."

He laughed as if she'd just said something deliciously filthy. The sound reverberated through her body, and Sydney slipped her hands inside his leather jacket, eliminating all the distance between them. After all, she and Simon did have a bit of a problem with keeping their hands off each other . . .

"Miss Thorne."

She turned to face Franz with Julia's polite, vaguely condescending look in place. Behind her, Sark groaned almost inaudibly as she stepped away.

"It seems I will be able to help you. But if you could first give us your fingerprint—just a formality, for security reasons, you understand."

"Of course." The machine quickly verified her identity, and Franz wasted no time in leading them down to the safe deposit boxes. He opened 23, and there it was. The Rambaldi cube. A special 500-year-old vintage of lunatic DNA, specially preserved for the sole purpose of making her life miserable.

She reached in, and the cube promptly slid away from her hand.

Too late, Sydney realized what was going on and knelt down to see a hole carved in the back of the safe deposit box. Whoever had just taken the Rambaldi cube, they were on their way to the nearest exit. Also, though they didn't realize it, they were in terrible danger. She would make sure of that.

"Let's go," she snapped. She and Sark had bolted from the room before Franz could even ask what was going on. Once they were out of sight in the fluorescent-lit back corridors, both drew their guns. She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and she simply pointed. With her in the lead, they sprinted after what had to be a Covenant operative. When she turned the corner, she saw him.

He was dark-haired, and built like a linebacker, but she knew she could catch up. Her feet pounded on the unforgiving concrete, closing the distance with every step. She probably could have just shot him, or stepped out of the way and let Sark do it, but she was, in the final analysis, CIA. She'd try to avoid it.

Sydney overtook him halfway down the hallway with an effective—if less than graceful—tackle. The impact completely knocked the breath from the operative's chest, and the cube went flying—along with her gun. "Get those, will you, dear?" she growled to Sark, twisting the man's arm behind his back.

"Certainly, darling."

Unfortunately, the Covenant's man thrashed beneath her, gaining enough leverage for a dizzying blow to her head. He regained his footing, but she recovered quickly enough to sweep his feet out from under him yet again. The next time he got up, she aimed a kick directly at his face. Had it landed, he would have been out cold, but he managed to deflect the blow. His fist connected solidly with her ribs.

"Step _aside_, for god's sake!" yelled Sark, who couldn't get a clear shot in the middle of a brawl.

Even as he spoke, Sydney was using the momentum of the man's arm to flip him to the floor, where—always the kickboxer—she sent him swiftly into unconsciousness with a well-placed slam of her heel. Another thing about a bullet between the eyes: it was just never as satisfying.

Sark lowered his gun and watched Sydney calmly tie the man's wrists with his own shoelaces. Then she stood up, smoothed her clothing and combed a hand through her mussed wig. "Ready to go?" she asked briskly, and he licked his lips. He wanted her, right there in the concrete corridor. To hell with the fact that he was dressed like Simon Walker and hotel security was no doubt on its way.

Then his eyes were drawn to her lower lip, still visibly torn despite her lipstick, the sight of which had the same general effect as a bucket of ice-cold water. She had acted the part of his lover convincingly in front of that bumbling employee, but he didn't know if the real Sydney would ever let him lay a hand on her after what he'd done_._ For the moment, he was following her lead in more ways than one.

"By all means," he murmured, holding out her gun by the barrel. "Shall we use the side exit?"

"No." She holstered the gun and rearranged her coat over it. "We'll go out the front door."

And so, without a word of explanation to Franz or anyone else, they swaggered out of Das Verlustzeit just as they'd entered it. After all, they had nothing to hide. Julia was merely stopping by to retrieve one of her own possessions. Once they were outside, with a remarkable lack of ceremony, Sydney opened the cube, removed the vial inside, and smashed it on the pavement, grinding the pieces beneath her heel. The empty cube was tossed into a nearby receptacle.

It was a rather anticlimactic way to get the best of the long-dead madman, but it seemed somewhat appropriate. As they made their way back to the car, Sark smirked and turned his head to regard Sydney with frank admiration. "I believe I've said it before. You are _so_ good."

"You ain't seen nothing yet," she promised, flashing a remarkably light-hearted grin.

That, at least, he could believe.

**Frankfurt**

Loud rock music pulsed through every inch of the club, complementing the dark blue-lit interior and the generally drug-fueled clientele. Sydney had a certain fondness for hard-rock clubs, just because it seemed she usually got to cover herself more decently in them than in the more brightly lit, lip-gloss-and-skimpy-clothing techno clubs. Even if it did generally involve more leather. Not a problem—Julia Thorne owned plenty of leather.

In this case, she'd even gotten to wear respectable pants. It was a real mood-booster to actually be able to run and kick people comfortably, even if the pants were accompanied by a corset top and a black leather trench coat. Tonight's wig was short, spiky, and dark blue; it wasn't going to obstruct her vision.

"Hey! Hey, fuck you, man! Get your fuckin' hands off me! _Hey_!"

And that, of course, would be Sark. She'd been the one to suggest he be an American again. After all, he'd certainly managed to be offensive the first time.

A few seconds later, he was dragged past by several security guards, all of whom were struggling to keep him under control. The little British cocky son of a bitch could put up a hell of a fight when he wanted to. Sydney watched the spectacle pass by and sipped her drink to hide a smile. She added eyeliner to the list of things that Sark could pull off while still looking ridiculously attractive, and then her accomplice made his move.

The group of security guards continued to escort the obnoxious patron to the exit, but he'd managed to palm one of their keycards and had dropped it on the floor, almost directly at Sydney's feet. She bent to pick it up, slipped it into her sleeve, and headed quickly toward the back of the club.

Thanks to the majority of the guards being occupied, no one stopped her from going into the back area. As she closed the door behind her, the com system was activated. "_I'll have you know that I'm considering filing a complaint_," Sark told her. "_I believe those guards used an unnecessary amount of force_."

"Do you really want to start a conversation about unnecessary force?" she asked, moving down the hallway in search of the right door. "I think we could start with all the fake teeth in Will's mouth from a little trip to Taipei."

There was silence on the other end. "_On second thought, I'm sure I got what was coming to me_," he said— if not contrite, than at least conciliatory.

"Damn right." She opened a door to her left, but it was only a janitor's closet.

"_That being said, I would not refuse any efforts on your part to . . . what is the phrase . . . 'kiss it and make it better'_."

Finally, she found the right one. "Yeah, I bet," Sydney muttered as she descended the stairs. "Let me guess—the place that got hurt the most is your—"

She should have anticipated the guard, but she didn't, and it nearly cost her her life. She barely jumped back in time to avoid sudden death. Bullets struck the concrete wall with a deafening cacophony of gunshots and ricochets. She pressed herself against the stairwell wall, listening carefully for the guard's approach.

"_Sydney?_" Trust Sark to know by the sound of the shots that it hadn't been her gun. She couldn't tell him she was uninjured without compromising her position.

When the guard got close enough, she lashed out with her foot, knocking him unconscious with a single kick. She knew there was a good reason she'd had these boots made steel-toed. The guard looked like he'd be out for a while, but she confiscated his gun anyway, just in case.

"_Sydney!_" Sark's voice was clipped and tense, devoid of its former levity.

"I'm fine," she said, and got a burst of static in her ear that could be caused by a frequency malfunction—or someone exhaling into a headset.

"_Radio silence until your extraction_?" asked Sark, entirely calm and businesslike.

"Affirmative. See you in a few minutes." After a quick scan of the area to make sure there were no other surprises waiting, she ran across the empty concrete toward a single heavy door at the end of the sub-basement. The keycard worked its magic, allowing her access to the secure lab.

Madrczyk sensed the intrusion and reached for his gun automatically, but she was too fast. She shot it out of his hand.

For a prolonged moment, they stared at each other across the empty metal table. Madrczyk clutched at his wounded hand, but hadn't made a sound since his initial agonized yell. Drops of blood hit the floor, but it was too dark for them to be visible. His eyes were caught between surprise and resignation.

"Julia."

There were so many things she wanted to tell this monster, this pathetic excuse for a man. In the end, only one seemed appropriate.

"My name is Sydney Bristow," she said, and emptied her clip into his chest.

**Zurich**

Sydney actually liked wearing high heels, when she didn't have to fight for her life. She liked the way they made her taller, changing her posture and the way she walked. Also, she liked the sound they made. Now, walking across the lobby of Sloane's Omnifam office, her shoes clacked sharply against the hardwood floor with every step, a wordless indictment of everything this false humanitarian claimed to stand for.

It would have been more dramatic to just barge in on him, but she stopped at the desk. "Hi! My name's Sara Godson," she told the receptionist, giving the name from her current set of identification papers. "I used to work with Arvin back in the States; I wanted to pop in and say hello before my flight leaves."

The woman smiled at her. "I'm sure Mr. Sloane would be delighted. If you'll wait just a moment . . ."

She reached for her phone, but Sydney caught her wrist in motion. "Do you think I could just . . . you know, go in unannounced? He doesn't know I'm in the area, and I think he'd like a surprise visit from an old friend. I promise I won't take up too much of his time."

"Well . . ." His receptionist bit her lip. "All right. But he still has a lot on his schedule this evening."

"Oh, this won't take but a minute," she promised, already on her way to the glass door.

Sloane recognized her immediately. He'd seen her in too many outlandish aliases to be fooled by a curled blond wig. "My god," he breathed, staring at her as if she were a vengeful spirit come to haunt him—which, in a sense, she was. "Sydney."

Her eyes narrowed, almost of their own volition. "Don't try acting like you're surprised that I'm still alive."

"I knew it was not your destiny to die that night in your apartment, but Sydney . . ." He shook his head. "After two years, even I began to have my doubts."

She crossed the room and stood across the desk from him, unavoidably reminded of their days at SD-6. If he tried to pull that _you've always been like a daughter to me_ crap, she wasn't going to be responsible for her own actions. The day she started thinking of Sloane as a father figure would be the day . . .

. . . _the day you start having sex with Sark, and—even worse—thinking of him as an actual human being?_

Well, all right, she conceded mentally, shifting slightly on her feet. There was that. However, one impossibility coming to fruition was not nearly enough cause for her to start feeling the warm-and-fuzzies for the man who had killed her fiance.

_No. Just the man who killed your best friend._

Damn her mind. Damn it to the deepest circles of hell.

With concentrated effort, Sydney blocked off every bit of the self-doubt that had suddenly decided to make itself known at the most inconvenient moment imaginable. "I am here for only one reason," she said in a tone only slightly more hospitable than the one in which she'd told Sloane she wanted to rip out his throat.

"And what is that?" He clasped his hands in front of his predictably immaculate suit and waited patiently for her response.

"I know you've somehow managed to secure a pardon for everything you've done, and the rest of the world is convinced that you've reformed. But you aren't fooling me. You will never fool me again, because I know what you are. I don't know what your endgame is this time around. Just know that you will fail, because I _will_ be watching you," she promised. "And when you make your move, I will put you away for the rest of your miserable life."

"Sydney . . ."

She could feel her lip curling in disgust. Here it was—the pathetic denial. Perhaps he'd even pretend to be hurt by her suspicion.

"Don't even try," she told him, shaking her head to reinforce the words. With her message successfully delivered, she turned and headed for the exit.

"Sydney."

She stopped, but didn't turn. "What?"

"You know your presence here has been recorded by the office's security cameras."

"But I also know you'll destroy the footage."

"And why would I do that?" His tone of voice was one she knew and hated. He was testing her, toying with her, making her prove herself as if she still worked for him, or even gave a damn what he thought of her. There were so many times when she wondered if he'd ever really left SD-6.

"You want to have a secret. Something only you know about me." _Because you're a conniving, manipulative bastard. But this time, you'll do me a favor._

She reached for the handle of the flawlessly unsmudged glass door.

"Mr. Vaughn's wife was assigned as my new handler—did you know that, Sydney?" Sloane saw her hesitation and was quick to press his advantage. "Ms. Reed is a lovely woman," he continued. "She's very lucky that Vaughn was able to overcome his grief after your passing . . . in a matter of months."

By the time she realized that she should have smiled or said something to the receptionist on the way out, Sydney was already in a cab, on her way back to the hotel. She stared down at the band around her wrist, the band that would inject her with deadly toxins if she tried to run away, and tried to pretend that its outline did not blur periodically as her eyes filled and refilled with tears. Every time, she blinked them back, refusing to give in.

It was a cheap shot, even for Sloane, but she should have realized that nothing was beyond him. And his motive was obvious— he wanted her to be curious, to stay and demand to know more. He wanted her to allow him the upper hand in exchange for information, but she would never be that desperate. Never.

Sark was waiting up for her, of course, reading in bed with the bracelet's remote trigger on the nightstand next to him.

While Sydney locked the door, he set down his book. They stared silently at each other from opposite sides of the room until finally, she approached, holding out her right arm so he could safely remove the band from her wrist. As he did so, his fingers brushed her skin. She didn't know whether to recoil or fall into his arms. She settled for neither. The bracelet hadn't chafed much, but she still rubbed her wrist automatically.

In the bathroom, she removed her wig and washed her face. Her hair, crumpled by being tightly trapped against her scalp, fell down around her face when she took off the head covering that went under the wig. In the mirror, there was a lost, insecure, miserable woman, and Sydney didn't like her at all.

When she came out, Sark was still watching her. Waiting for something, but she had no idea what. She wasn't in the mood to guess what was going on in his head. She was in the kind of mood that drives sensible people to drink and cry and break things. But here she was, locked in a Zurich hotel room with her enemy or captor or lover or— whatever the hell he was, and she couldn't do any of that. So she started digging through her suitcase for a nightgown.

"Sydney." Apparently he was going to break their silence first. "What on earth did he say to you?"

"It doesn't matter." Her hands dug through the densely packed clothing, and she pulled out something either black or dark blue. It didn't matter. She started taking off her clothes without ceremony or any regard for Sark's presence. It wasn't until she was completely naked that she realized that it was a thin robe, not lingerie. Probably packed by mistake. Oh well. She put it on anyway. That didn't matter, either.

There were really an entire host of things that didn't matter, when you thought about it. The way she no longer mattered to Vaughn was a perfect example.

A strangled laugh escaped her as she turned to face Sark, and she could tell that it unnerved him.

"Maybe I'm just easily replaced," she said to him in a voice that veered sharply between lightness and despair. "Do you think that's it?"

The slightest movement of his eyebrows, up and together. "Sydney . . ."

A few tears dropped down her face as she walked to the bed, but that was all. She sat with her legs folded beneath her and her fingers clenched in the sheets and her eyes never leaving Sark's. He was actually the one who looked away, as if to gather his thoughts. "I realize we have quite a bit of history between us, and most of it unfriendly," he finally said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone. "So what I'm asking may not be the easiest thing for you to give. But I need you to try."

"What are—"

"I need you to _trust_ me, Sydney. Trust me when I say that you cannot be replaced, easily or otherwise."

Sadness won out where, in another situation, she might have kissed him. "I wouldn't be so sure," she replied, trying to contort her mouth into a smile.

He reached over and cradled one side of her face in his hand. Without meaning to, she leaned into the gesture. "Whoever Vaughn's new woman might be," he said quietly and evenly, his eyes once again locked onto hers, "I pity her. Whether she realizes it or not, she stands in the shadow of someone she can never hope to equal."

"You don't know anything about her."

"I know you," was his simple reply. "Which I believe to be more than sufficient."

This time, she did kiss him. She moved slowly and with care, wondering if he might disappear. Perhaps this was all just a dream, because the Sark she knew would never say anything so tender to anyone. But as her lips covered his for the first time since Amsterdam, he felt solid. Warm. A sigh of sharp, almost painful relief passed between them, but she didn't know if it had been him or her, or both.

She slipped off the robe, pushing it haphazardly toward the floor. An almost fearful reverence burned in Sark's eyes.

"Dear god, Sydney," he whispered.

It was the last thing said between them for a while.

His mouth felt as if it should leave a mark as it worked in tandem with long, clever fingers to map every inch of her bare skin. He kissed the scar on her stomach, tracing the line of healed tissue with his tongue, and despite the dense haze of pleasure surrounding her mind, it made her want to cry. She felt broken, abandoned, damaged. Afraid to let him worship her this way. His fingertips slid down her hips. The trail of his hands burned.

"Julian," she cried out, so softly she wasn't sure he heard. She said it without thinking or planning ahead, but it felt unexpectedly right. This moment was too raw, too intimate and delicate for her to use his false last name. In the morning, he could be Sark again.

Later, it became blurred in her memory, a hazy string of sensation and emotion. His lips and tongue, touching her so intimately—her fingers clutching at the pillow—one of his hands at her knee—his hair beneath her palm—her voice, breaking. When it was over, she pulled him closer and wrapped herself in his arms, lulled into sleep by her own sated drowsiness and Sark's breath on her face. Unhindered by logic, she felt warm and utterly safe.

Just before she fell asleep, he kissed her cheek and said, "Sweet dreams." But when she woke up in the morning, she had already forgotten.

According to the alarm clock on the bedside table, it was a little after seven. Sydney reached up to rub her bleary, sleep-crusted eyes, and realized as she did so that she was somewhat sprawled across Sark's side. His arm was curled around her back, and she had been resting her head on his chest.

He was still asleep, reminding her of the first morning she'd woken up beside him. This time, she had no intention of getting out of bed. Instead she reached up with one hand and began tracing his aristocratic, almost delicate features with her fingertips. She gently brushed his forehead, cheekbones, and jaw, moving down his throat to feel his pulse. By the time her thumb moved to stroke across his crooked lower lip, his mouth was curving into a smile.

"Good morning," he murmured, not opening his eyes. His voice was drowsy, heavily laced with sleep and contentment.

"Hi," she whispered back. Sydney adjusted her position so she could more easily bend over him and kiss him. A low, pleased sound vibrated in his throat, and his lips moved against hers slowly, deliberately. It was understandable, given his half-asleep state, but it was also driving her crazy.

Then he had actually had the gall to _stop_. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked. He finally half-opened his eyes and regarded her hazily.

"There's nothing good on TV," she replied, and kissed the spot on his neck just behind his ear. One of Sark's arms slipped around her back as he chuckled at her ridiculousness. In retaliation, she rolled on top of him, which effectively put a stop to his laughter.

Sark wanted to say something to her. He wanted to request that she wake him up this way every morning, because he was certain that he would never tire of it. He wanted to tell her that Michael Vaughn was a goddamned fool. He wanted to let her know how unfathomably beautiful she was. But he didn't know how to say any of those things, so he just kissed her again and again, savoring the taste of her and knowing that it wouldn't last.

The last vestiges of sleep were driven away completely when Sydney guided him inside her, slowly, her lips never ceasing to move in tandem with his. He clutched at the back of her head with one hand, feeling his control crumble with every roll of her hips. "Sydney," he breathed. She said nothing, only placed kisses all over his face and stroked his hair. He finally managed to capture her soft sweet mouth once more.

He shifted beneath her, and she moaned softly, her eyes fluttering shut. Not being a complete imbecile, he did it again.

"Oh . . . Sark . . ." Her movements were becoming more urgent, and she buried her face in his neck. "_Sark_," she repeated, muffled against his skin.

His hands traced her ribs, her spine, the delicate bones in her shoulders. He focused on that, because whenever she said his name that way, her voice throaty and thick, it became extremely difficult to keep any sort of grip on reality.

"Sark . . . oh, _god, Sark_—" She cried out wordlessly, writhing above him. Which was quite lucky, really, because his world was in the process of turning inside out in a blaze of searing heat, complete with little white explosions behind his eyes. So much for keeping a grip on reality.

For a while, they just lay there, entangled, moaning softly in the aftermath and trying to catch their collective breath.

It was Sydney who spoke first, albeit in a rather dazed mumble. "When do we have to leave?" she asked.

Sark smiled languidly to himself and began tracing circles on her back with his fingertips. "Not for a few more hours."

"Mmmm. Good."

He'd never seen her like this before—so serenely unguarded, almost boneless with contentment as she nestled her head into a comfortable position on his chest once again. He hadn't even been certain that she _ever_ acted this way. It was rather surreal. He briefly reconsidered his initially discarded Project Helix theory, but decided it was far more likely that Sydney simply contained hidden depths of behavior of which he had hitherto been unaware.

"Sark?"

"Hm."

"You know . . ." She yawned. "I was gonna come back and fight with you."

"Last night?"

"Yeah."

"Fight with me. About what?"

"How it's all a big mistake, and you'll just end up hurting me."

"I see." He was waiting for her muscles to tense, for her to pull away from him, but it wasn't happening. "Do you still believe that?"

She actually snickered. "Probably. Knowing you."

"You don't seem terribly concerned."

"Well . . ." This time, she interrupted herself by stretching. "I figure if you try anything, I'll kill you."

It was difficult to argue when she said it so calmly.

Sark began to stroke her tangled hair. "This is truly strange, this . . . relationship of ours."

"Oh, so _now_ you get it," she muttered.

"I suppose we can't all have your keen perception of the bizarre, Miss Bristow."

She lifted her head abruptly, which was sufficient provocation for him to completely open his eyes. Sydney was staring at him with an almost wounded expression on her lovely face. "Don't call me that," she said. "Not after last night."

"I'm sorry," he replied, startled into an apology. "Sydney."

"Better." She leaned up and kissed him—too briefly—and then rolled away. Sark's entire body protested the sudden loss of her soft warm weight, but he didn't say a word; he just turned on his side to face her. She had her head propped up on one hand, and as he watched her, Sydney flashed that grin at him.

"So," she said brightly. "What's next?"

**Cadiz**

Now _this_ was a classic example of why she preferred the heavy metal scene when it came to clubs. As Sydney checked her coat at the door, it was difficult not to be aware of how much her clothing _didn't_ conceal. This particular incarnation of the little black dress was tight, ribbed, strapless, and short. Granted, it looked good on her, but she sometimes had to stifle the urge to steal someone's jacket and use it to cover herself.

Sydney pressed her lips together and reminded herself that she was Julia Thorne, and she did not give a damn about anything except achieving her objective.

She tossed her fake head of hair as imperiously as she could manage, shaking off her doubts and insecurities. When she'd taken off the blond wig in Zurich, she'd accidentally torn it, so she was making do with a chin-length, tousled dark hairstyle. What the hell. Assassins changed their look every now and then, too. She'd considered not wearing a wig at all, but something about it helped her get into character. The old habits, in this case, wouldn't die at all.

When she looked over at Sark, a jolt of pure lust hit her so abruptly she could hear blood rushing in her head even over the pounding techno music.

At that moment, she wouldn't have been entirely shocked if the air between them had started sparking. Every line of Sark's body was accented by the fitted black dress shirt he'd tucked into his leather pants. Several of the top buttons were open, and she found herself entranced by the long lines of his neck, and his vivid blue eyes— which were currently roaming up and down her bare legs. She told herself that one lapse before they got down to business wouldn't hurt anything, so she stepped close, slid a hand around the side of his neck and kissed him.

She didn't let it last very long; after all, they were in public. She could very faintly taste his toothpaste when her tongue darted past his lips.

"Ready?" she asked, having stepped back to a safe distance. Without meaning to, she tucked a bit of her wig behind her ear.

He closed his eyes briefly and muttered a few rather evocative profanities in Russian and French. Then he nodded, the picture of calm, and they proceeded into the crowded, pulsing discotheque. Sark had lobbied for scheduling the meet in a more subdued location, but in the end he'd been overruled by Simon's contact.

Thus the recurrence of Sark's leather pants. He'd worn them in Frankfurt, and at first had flatly refused to wear them again. Sydney had managed to talk him into it with the argument that if she had to wear such a ridiculous dress, he could wear the damn pants. Despite his strenuous objections, they weren't all that tight. And they looked damn good on him.

Sydney shook her head mentally, though on the surface she was scanning the crowd with an affected expression of boredom. The intensity of this . . . _thing_ between her and Sark was something she'd never encountered before. Most likely that was because she'd never had a relationship based almost purely on physical attraction—and deeper desires on her part that she had no wish to examine. Her and Simon's association had been completely sexual, but this was somehow different from that as well. She remembered the things Sark had said in Zurich and blushed in the safety of the flashing colored lights.

Yes, this was a different thing altogether. She just couldn't figure out . . . why. Why it was different with Sark, _or_ why she liked it so much.

These musings—and her search for Josef Alber, Simon's contact—were interrupted by the extremely unwelcome presence of someone's hand on her ass.

She whirled around, but there was only Sark behind her—and, to the left, a man whose face was contorted in pain, clutching what could very well have been a broken wrist. "Carry on, darling," Sark told her serenely, putting an arm around her waist and keeping up their pace through the dancing horde.

"_Sark_," she scolded, because she felt that she should, even though she sort of wanted to laugh.

"Any sign of our man?"

Badly behaved and utterly incorrigible. A deadly combination. _Not yet,_ she was about to reply, but just then she caught sight of Alber in the very small lounge area not taken over by dance floor. The bleach-blond middle-aged German had always reminded her unpleasantly of Anthony Geiger, temporary head of SD-6, but he was relatively easy to spot. "I see him," she said. Once again, she led Sark through the mob of patrons.

Sitting down across from Alber without flashing him was difficult, but she managed it out of long practice. Sark sat next to her, and she deliberately slung one arm over his shoulders. "Mr. Alber," she said, just loudly enough to be heard. "It's been a while."

"Julia! I almost did not recognize you, with your, ah, new hairstyle. I like it, very much."

She and Sark shared a split-second glance of complete understanding. Apparently McKenas Cole wasn't the only one with a hair fixation.

"Glad to hear it," was her appropriately Julia-like brusque reply. "I'm here for some information. Simon told me you're a reliable source. Is that true?"

"Well . . ." Alber spread his hands, which were laden with multiple heavy rings. "I am flattered by his high opinion of me, but I cannot know everything. How can you be sure I even have what you are looking for?"

"You do." She began running her fingers back and forth from Sark's shoulder to his neck. His muscles tensed considerably under her touch.

Alber seemed somewhat taken aback by her complete certainty. "In that case . . . if I have what you want to know, I will be happy to share it. Of course . . ." Now he grinned widely and repulsively, back on more familiar territory. "Nothing in this life is free."

"Of course."

The German's attention seemed to be wavering. "Pardon me," he said abruptly. "But I think I recognize you—Julian Sark, is it not?"

"That's correct," Sark confirmed. One of his hands seemed to have wandered onto Sydney's bare knee, but it merely rested there, behaving itself.

"You have not been—what is the word. Not been about for a few years now."

She didn't have to see Sark's condescendingly raised eyebrow to know it was there. "I'm back."

"Ja, I see that," chortled Alber, returning his gaze to Sydney. "Does Simon know about your new pet?"

"It's none of his business," she replied with a careless shrug. "Or yours. I want you to get me back in contact with Dr. Galvani. Can you do it or not?"

The sudden return to their transaction seemed to throw Alber off for a moment, but he quickly recovered. "Of course, of course. We have just talked last week about some equipment he is looking for. If you want a phone number, I—"

"I want to know where he is. For a follow-up visit."

The way Alber looked at her was so blatantly lecherous that she dug her fingers into Sark's shoulder unintentionally. "The information you ask for is very valuable," he told her, drawing out each word. "I let you off easy last time, but now I will have to be paid in full. Your money will no longer suffice."

Shit. This wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was unwelcome as hell. "What do you want?" She asked the question with a calmness she didn't remotely feel.

"Mr. Walker has told me much about you, over the course of our association." That single sentence was enough for her to know what was he was after, but she knew he wouldn't stop there. Men like Alber liked watching people squirm almost as much as they liked watching them . . . do other things. "His stories of your, ah, _appetites_, they provoked my interest. I had hoped to make the request of you and Simon together, but the opportunity never arose. I imagine you and Mister Sark will perform admirably. That is, if you still—"

"_What_ do you _want_?" she snapped impatiently. She hoped the honest annoyance masked her growing trepidation.

"I have an apartment, not far from here. You will provide me with a little show, in exchange for the location."

Having seen it coming didn't make his demand any less disgustingly unpleasant. She had to turn this situation around, and fast. "Look, Josef, I'm not sure what Simon told you, but my 'appetites' do not include performing for his friends. No deal."

Alber's grin was her only warning: she wasn't dealing with another stupid, drooling pervert. No, she was dealing with a very _smart_ drooling pervert, and he knew he had her cornered. "Tonight, you will, if you want to see Galvani again," he told her in the same gratingly smarmy tone. "You will not be having much luck, if you look for another way to find him. You should know, Julia, that his, ah, elusive operation is part of what makes him so valuable."

Sydney stared him down as if she were considering her options, but most of her attention was focused on her index finger, tapping in Morse code on Sark's neck.

_T. R. U. S. T. M. E._

"Could I trust you to keep this strictly confidential?" she asked, stalling for time. "My presence here isn't supposed to be common knowledge."

"We can get around the security cameras. Your secret will be safe with me." God, that filthy grin turned her stomach.

Sark's reply, tapped gently on her leg, was simple and concise.

_Y. E. S._

"All right. We'll do it." She could have sworn Sark's head jerked when she said it, but she didn't turn to look.

Alber's expression only became more gleeful. "Wonderful. Please, come with me."

He stood up and began to wind his way through the throng, confident that they would follow. As Sydney began to do so, Sark was right behind her. "I regret to inform you, Sydney, that exhibitionism isn't exactly my passion."

Without slowing down, she turned her head and saw that he looked, for Sark, considerably ruffled. She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile.

"You're trusting me, remember?"

The trip to Alber's apartment was excruciatingly tense—for her, at least, and Sark's hand on her waist was more of a death grip than a comforting gesture. Only Alber, predictably, was completely unaffected by it. The bastard even started whistling as they walked down the hallway toward his apartment. He opened the door with the air of a congenial host and gestured expansively at the interior. "Please, make yourselves at home."

Once they were inside, the first thing Sydney did was head for the stereo. It wasn't normally something she thought about, but she wasn't about to get even remotely hot and heavy with Sark if the only sounds in the room were them and this pervert's heavy breathing. The situation was unbelievably frustrating—she couldn't just refuse, or threaten him, or hit him with a lamp. She needed to find Galvani, and Josef fucking Alber was her only known link.

If he pushed it too far, she would still hit him with a lamp—the really heavy one by the window. She just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

All she could find was loud dance music similar to what they'd just been bombarded with in the club. Apparently Alber was a fan.

Sark watched her, mostly to avoid making eye contact with their repulsive host, who had gone to his mini-bar. He kept waiting for Sydney to put her plan into action, whatever it was, and a small, unpleasant knot in his stomach was telling him that cooperation might, in fact, be the entirety of that plan. Aside from the addition of Alber, this was, in fact, exactly what he'd planned on doing tonight, but the addition of their one-man audience was unexpected and unacceptable.

"Would either of you like something to drink? A glass of wine, perhaps?"

"Vodka," he replied without taking his eyes off Sydney's back. "Just give me the bottle, would you?"

The sudden blast of music from the speakers wasn't enough to drown out Alber's abrasive laughter, but the man was wise enough to keep his thoughts to himself and hand over the vodka. Sark nearly choked on the first mouthful; a combination of unwelcome nerves and not having had hard liquor for more than two years. He kept drinking steadily until his throat felt like it was on fire and a third of the bottle was empty, whereupon Sydney took it from his hands.

"Good idea," she told him sotto voce, and picked up where he'd left off. She had taken off her coat and slung it across the TV, so as she drank he was able to admire the steadily moving muscles in her throat and the aesthetic prominence of her collarbone. God, this would be a perfect night if it weren't for Alber.

Sydney set the bottle down on the nearest flat surface and immediately yanked him over by the belt for a hard, alcohol-flavored kiss.

He tried to think about the music. Sydney's legs. The usefulness of ambidextrous decocking levers. Anything but the voyeur in the room, who was making Sark's mental effort extremely difficult by saying things like "Ah ha ha! Getting right to it, I see. Excellent!"

His thoughts were derailing, centering more and more around the idea of killing Alber in the most painful ways he could imagine. Whether Sydney really picked up on what he was thinking or just knew him well enough to guess, she pulled back just enough to speak. "Don't think about him," she murmured. "You can do this. We just have to put on a good show."

The bed was low to the ground, which made it easier for her to collapse onto it. She pulled Sark down with her, and he landed on his elbows to avoid hitting her with his full weight. At absolutely any other time, the way she was kissing his neck would have been driving him half-mad with wanting her.

As it was, he had no idea what to do, how to act. Losing control around Sydney had become almost a routine occurrence, and he no longer resented her ability to so easily disarm him. But there was absolutely no chance that he would reveal that vulnerability to anyone but Sydney herself, in absolute privacy. Caught between obstructed lust and indignant rage, a violent energy was rapidly building inside him, and his attempts to stop it were only worsening the situation.

Sensing that she would have to take the more active role, she flipped their positions. She looked at him with the question in her eyes.

"I can't," he hissed through gritted teeth. His hand was in Sydney's fake hair, but it was a gesture of desperation, not a conscious part of the act.

She leaned closer, blocking everything else from his view and holding his head in both hands. "You can. It's just me, okay? It's just me." Sydney pressed a soft kiss to his temple, even while her hips jerked and she let out a loud moan for Alber's benefit. "Just me."

But it wasn't just her, and he couldn't do this. Not in front of _that._ "Sydney." The weakness in his own voice disgusted him, and from the way she tensed up above him, she could hear it too. "Please. Do _not_ make me beg."

Sydney's whole body jolted, but she turned it into a smooth, complete gesture, rearing up to look at Alber. "You've seen enough," she said. Sark, laying back with his eyes closed, noticed a certain degree of huskiness in her voice. "Where is Galvani?"

"He . . . he is in Tokyo. The main office—you have been there before," Alber replied, too glazed even to argue.

"Thanks." She got up—Sark stifled a gasp as her weight shifted on his erection—and walked over to the chair Alber was sitting in. "This is for being a sick, disgusting pervert," she said clearly, and delivered a roundhouse kick to his head. After a moment of consideration, she kicked him again, knocking him down onto the floor. "And so is that."

She looked expectantly at Sark, who had decided to sit up to watch the show. "Ready to go?"

He wanted to thank her, but didn't know how. He also wondered if it would be tacky to request that she pick up where she'd left off, now that Alber was safely unconscious and would likely remain so for several hours. Questions of good taste aside, he decided that relocation was the wisest option. The apartment had a distinctly unpleasant connotation in both their minds already, and it would be very inconvenient if Alber did revive and Sark had to slit his throat.

Rather than answer, he merely stood up and straightened his clothing. Sydney picked her coat off the TV but left the music blaring. They left the apartment with even less fanfare than when they'd entered, proceeding straight to the elevator.

They were almost down to the fifth floor before Sark pressed the emergency stop button and they nearly attacked each other.

Sydney wriggled against him wonderfully as they kissed. "Mmm . . . mm. Sark . . . I do _not_ . . . understand you," she informed him in a breathless voice that seemed to travel straight from her lips to the fire in the pit of his stomach. Her fingers had forgone unbuttoning his shirt in favor of unfastening his belt.

"I almost did this in Amsterdam," he muttered back. "Stopped the elevator."

"That doesn't—" _explain anything_, she was probably about to say, but she became rather involved in the process of exploring Sark's mouth, and seemed to forget about finishing her sentence. He didn't pay much attention to what she was doing with her hands until one of them wrapped around his cock. Half-laughing as she delivered the famous last words "I can't _believe_ I'm doing this," she maneuvered their bodies together with a studious precision that, under other circumstances, might have amused him.

For a moment he just leaned into Sydney, pushing her against the wall, overwhelmed by the sudden perfection of being buried inside her. Despite the cowardice of it, he thought it might be for the best that she return to the CIA. She was simply too much for him to handle on a regular basis.

In high heels, she was the same height as him, if not a tiny bit taller, which made things easier. Unfortunately, Sydney had the habit of twining one or both of her legs around him, which worked on a bed but not standing up. As he moved in and out of her, she kept fidgeting her legs and making little frustrated whimpering noises—which increased his arousal and speed, which increased her fidgeting. Finally, she managed to get one leg securely around his waist. The sudden change in angle made them both gasp.

One of Sydney's arms was wrapped around his shoulders for balance. Her other hand was running rampant on his scalp, roughly stroking his hair in every direction. It was distractingly pleasant—which, considering the situation, was impressive. Not for the first time with Sydney, he continued to fuck her with an edge of desperation, half-convinced that if he didn't come soon he could conceivably die. It certainly felt that way.

"Ohhh. Sark. _Sark_." She continued to say his name in that voice that utterly destroyed him every time, and he almost wanted her to stop. He never wanted her to stop. He never wanted _this_ to stop, but his world was beginning to contract. There was nothing but Sydney. Her leg wrapped around him, her breath on his neck, her voice in his ear, the scent of her skin, and the marvelous wet heat surrounding his cock, and her back arching against him—

He didn't scream her name. He didn't scream anything in particular, insofar as he was aware enough to notice, but when his vision cleared and his brain started to function more clearly, he was vaguely surprised that he'd managed to remain upright. Greater clarity of thought also brought with it a certain degree of guilt.

"Sydney. You didn't . . ."

She cut him off with a swift, soft kiss and a smile. "It's all right. You've got all night to make it up to me."

"True." He considered that further and gave her a smirk of his own. "Still, I believe there's a saying about there being no time like the present."

Sydney later tried to convince him that his hands were being wasted handling guns, but he maintained that being well-rounded and multitalented individual had its own merits. His counterargument—that her mouth was, in general, wasted on talking—was met with scorn and a malicious bout of tickling. It was a long and complex argument that lasted for most of the night, though the opposing sides forged a truce around 4 a.m. and fell asleep in each other's arms.

After all, they did have a plane to catch.

**Tokyo**

The thing about boundaries, Sydney mused, was that they were easy to draw but almost impossible to enforce. One could say, hypothetically, that a relationship would be allowed to progress to a certain point and no further. But once you found yourself in the damnable position of actually _liking_ Julian Sark, entirely separate from your desire to jump his bones, there was nothing to do but look back at those utterly mutilated boundaries and feel . . . tricked, somehow.

Drawing do-not-cross lines for intimacy was worse than drawing lines in the sand; it was more like drawing lines on water itself. Sex led to cuddling which led to knowing about that spot on Sark's side that he would absolutely never admit was ticklish. Real fights degenerated into playful teasing—and she knew, she just _knew_ there was something wrong with a universe in which Sark could be playful.

What had she done wrong, and what could she possibly do to fix it? There had to be a way to just sleep with him, without starting to _care_. She'd managed it with Simon, and it wasn't as if Sark were something special. He wasn't the sort of man she could ever actually fall in love with. International travel aside, he was still holding her _hostage,_ for god's sake. The time and place of her release to the CIA had been set, and in four days she would be back in Los Angeles, getting reacquainted with her soul mate and his 'lovely' wife. Sark would drop her off without a care in the world and go back to working for the highest bidder.

Sometimes Sydney wondered if she was trying to stockpile these happy moments with Sark, in a futile attempt to safeguard herself from the inevitable grief of seeing Vaughn again. It was the only theory that made any kind of sense. The other explanations . . . well, they were too absurd to even contemplate.

"I must say— that was rather anticlimactic."

"What?" They were in the streets of Tokyo; the weather was so nice that Sydney had insisted they go back to their hotel on foot.

"You, simply walking away. I suppose I was expecting something a little more dramatic, after all the trouble you went to."

Or in less cryptic, non-Sark language, _I rolled around on a lecher's bed to get you Galvani's location and all you do when you find him is punch him in the face and then just leave him there with his broken nose?_ "I guess I'd be more angry with him if our little reclamation project wasn't going so well," she replied with her mother's feline serenity. "Now all that's left is Patagonia."

"The man in front of the drug store is watching us."

Sydney looked forward. Three blocks ahead, business suit, long coat. It wasn't cool enough for a coat that size. She didn't look straight at him, carefully avoiding any eye contact, but it was hard to miss the white-blond ponytail tucked into his collar. Mikhail Basirov. The mission in Murmansk.

_Dammit._

"You're right. That's a Covenant assassin; I met him once on an assignment." She said it calmly, because there was no point in panicking, but she could feel the adrenaline beginning to shoot through her veins, preparing her for fight-or-flight response. By the time the situation came to a head, she'd probably be able to take several hits without feeling them, but if Basirov opened fire right away, the bullets would kill her just as quickly.

"I see." Neither of them broke pace; she could practically feel the rapid machinations of Sark's brain. "Do you suppose he's here for you or me?"

"They wouldn't send Basirov after me. He must be here to kill you."

"Could he do it?"

A pause, lasting no more than two seconds. She was remembering the bloodied corpses of the Murmansk facility's guards and employees. As for Sark—she couldn't begin to guess what was going through his mind at that moment.

"Yes."

"Then I suggest you turn at this next alley. Circle around and move in behind him."

"Aren't you worried I'll run?" she asked neutrally.

At the mouth of the alley, he paused, and his eyes flickered to hers. "I'm attempting to prioritize, if you don't mind."

"Right," she replied, unsure what she meant by it.

Even as Sydney moved off the sidewalk and began to run, she wasn't certain what she planned to do. Sark was smarter than Basirov, but she'd also seen Sark fire and miss. She hadn't seen Basirov do that. Not even once. It was probably an even match, skewed slightly in favor of Sark because he had been warned. If she left, there was a good chance that he could dispose of Basirov. Sark was a master of survival. She could, in good conscience, make her escape right now.

She still raced the circumference of the two blocks to ambush Basirov, but at least she'd examined her options. There was some obnoxious saying, Sydney recalled, drawing the gun in her purse, about how if you were going to hell, you might as well do it thoroughly. It was as good a reason as any.

When her ears picked up the peculiar sound of a gunfire muffled by a silencer, she was just turning the corner. Basirov, unwounded, was standing in the mouth of the alley with his back to her. Screams from the people on the street rang through the air, but they were dull in her ears. She was numbed by the adrenaline. Numbed by fear. Basirov was backlit by the sunlight, casting his shape into darkness. Just another silhouette at the firing range.

Her first shot went wide. The second ripped out his throat. She'd been aiming for his chest, but worrying about marksmanship was the last thing she intended to do. In fact, Sydney's worrying was currently restricted to one thing and one thing only.

But as Basirov staggered from the impact of his newly acquired lethal wound, he was suddenly blown back into the alley. And 'blown' was truly the most accurate word. Sydney came to a dead stop a few feet away, staring at the damage with something between sick fascination and absolute horror.

His entire torso was a complete ruin, his head barely attached to the rest of his body. Most internal organs that weren't destroyed had been made clearly visible, and the smell . . . she covered her mouth with one hand and tried not to breathe, think, or vomit. The puddle of blood surrounding Basirov's remains was growing steadily, black in shadow and sickening vermilion in sunlight. Soon she'd have to step back, or it would pool around her feet.

Sark moved into the alley with her, looking remarkably healthy for someone who'd supposedly just been shot. "Police will arrive soon," he commented, and pulled—of all things—a cell phone out of his pocket. He flipped it open and, after pressing a few keys, took a picture of the corpse. Her desire to demand to know what he was doing was quickly defeated by the roiling in her gut. She rushed to a nearby trash can and clutched the cold metal rim as she emptied her stomach.

When she finished throwing up, she became aware of Sark's voice beyond the dull buzzing in her head.

"We should be going. Can you walk?"

She spat into the trash can, trying to clear the taste of bile from her mouth. It wasn't that she mourned Basilov even for a second—after all, he'd be just as thoroughly dead at her hand even if Sark hadn't decided to turn him into the human equivalent of a broken piñata. Still . . .

"Yeah," she rasped, raking her hair back with one hand. "I can walk."

He handed over the gun she'd dropped in her haste, and she put it back into her purse.

The trip back to the hotel was quick and silent. As they waited for the elevator, Sark reached up as if to touch her face, but she flinched and he immediately dropped his hand. It wasn't until they reached the relative safety of their room that she spoke again.

"What did you do to keep from getting shot? He fired his gun; I heard it."

"Sydney . . ." He didn't want her to do this, but there was no stopping it now.

"You pulled someone in front of you," she surmised, nodding to herself. "Of course you did. Was it a man? A woman? A child?"

"A man." His chin was lifted, his icy eyes locked on her face. Just like the good old days. "A little shorter than me, well-dressed. I'm afraid we didn't have time for formal introductions. I wasn't very taken with his cologne."

"_Dammit, Sark!_" she shouted. Her voice was still hoarse and her throat felt raw. To make things worse, tears were welling up in her eyes.

She wanted to hate him. She wanted to throw a punch at him. She wanted him to understand the panic still tight in her chest, the horrific anticipation of a world in which Sark no longer existed, and she wanted him to be sorry for making her care.

Without the slightest change in his expression, Sark closed the distance between them and put his arms around her. He was unmoved by her attempts to push away— from him, from the hideous truth: she was glad an innocent man had died, because it meant Sark was still alive. She wanted to hate Sark, but the only person she hated was herself. She struggled against him, but his arms were firmly locked, more restraining than comforting.

She could have broken his hold on her, had she chosen to. The problem was actually bringing herself to do it.

Perhaps being trapped was better than being lost.

When Sark did let go, it was to wipe the tears from her cheeks with his fingers. "You shouldn't cry," he advised her, matter-of-fact. "It depletes your body of moisture and leaves your vision impaired to possible attacks."

She laughed wetly with her face in his hands. "You shouldn't be such a jerk. It makes people send assassins after you."

"I'll take it under advisement." The twitch of a smile danced at the corner of his mouth.

"What the hell did you shoot him with?" she asked, more because she had to know than because she wanted to.

The gun Sark pulled out of his leather jacket looked like the bastard love child of a SIG-Sauer P226 and a sawed-off shotgun with a pistol grip. It was a handgun, at least marginally, but everything from the size to the pure black finish made it look like Death with a trigger. "Custom-made, special order," he told her unnecessarily. "I had just picked it up from my associate when I found you in London. 13mm cartridges, explosive rounds. 15-shot magazine."

"That . . . can't be very practical," was all she could think to say.

"It isn't. Not only is the ammunition prohibitively expensive, the gun itself makes concealed-carry next to impossible. The weight would also quickly lower my accuracy in a prolonged firefight. However, when it comes to sending a message that I would rather not be hunted like a common miscreant . . ."

"You sent the picture of his body to the Covenant."

"Yes."

She nodded absently. All the adrenaline was gone, leaving utter exhaustion in its place. She'd thought jet lag was a thing of the past for her, but a week and a half of cross-time-zone travel had proved that assumption dead wrong. Also, she and Sark hadn't exactly been judicious in the amount of sleep they'd allowed themselves. It was all catching up with her, and all she wanted to do was collapse on the bed. She decided to rinse out her mouth first.

Sark was putting away his ridiculous gun when she returned. She watched, waiting until he stood up, and extended a hand. "Come to bed."

Somehow, after everything, he still looked surprised. Apprehensive, bewildered, nervous. _Something._

But he didn't say anything, protest or complaint. The secret thrill of seeing him obey her was a potent addiction for Sydney. It had no real value, especially considering that she was still his captive, not the other way around, but it still made her pulse quicken.

It wasn't until he was within arm's reach that she actually got a good look at him and realized that Sark looked even worse than she felt. Even on the flight from Spain, she remembered that he hadn't closed his eyes once. It seemed constant vigilance came with a hefty price.

"Come on," she said, even more quietly. "You need to sleep."

"Your concern is touching."

Sydney managed not to roll her eyes. Instead of responding to the sarcasm, she caught his wrist and tugged him onto the bed with her. For all his flippancy, he sighed audibly from his position behind her and quickly made himself comfortable on the lumpy mattress. His breath against her neck soon became deep and even, and the arm around her waist was dead weight more than an actual grip. She leaned back into the solid warmth he provided.

"You know . . . I think you really might be a psychopath," she murmured.

"Nnm. Your hair smells lovely." The words were slurred and barely discernible, and made her wonder if he'd even heard her. A part of her almost wanted to wake him up and repeat what she'd said, because she really had meant it and would probably never broach the subject again. Now was the time.

On the other hand . . . Sark nuzzled the back of her neck and made a quiet humming noise in his sleep.

It was fine like this.

**Patagonia**

They approached the building undetected, but Sark and Sydney were both palpably tense, taking aim at every stray noise or moving shadow. There was no way of knowing what kind of guard a Covenant facility such as this would warrant. It could be sufficiently out of the way to be left with relatively light security, but the Covenant had already gone to great lengths to put this farcical fertilization scheme into action.

Sydney had never told him about it in detail, or even explained the purpose of the operation in forthright terms. He'd culled the information from a variety of sources—what little she said, the facts that she implied, the neat surgical scar on her stomach. When he brought it up, obliquely as possible, she managed to confirm his suspicions while simultaneously bringing the discussion to an immediate halt. His curiosity was unsatisfied, but he respected her wishes.

The situation was incredibly bizarre. Sark lacked neither intellect nor imagination, but he had never seriously considered having children in any capacity, let alone with a co-parent who had died centuries ago. He could only surmise that Sydney's status as the supposed Chosen One had contributed to this madness.

How could she possibly feel about this violation, not only of her free will, but of her own body? What would she have done if the procedure had been carried out, creating a child that would be—if only biologically—hers? He would never know the answers, because he never planned to ask.

"The Covenant probably knows I destroyed the DNA in Graz by now," Sydney whispered as they crept through the pillared entrance. "It's possible they already shut down the lab, but I have to be sure."

It was beginning to seem more and more likely that such was the case. Their assault rifles seemed rather superfluous, prowling through empty hallway after empty hallway. They were almost to the main hall of the castle-like building, and there were still no signs of an active facility.

Those signs only manifested themselves when they reached the main hall itself. There was the laboratory equipment, inactive but secured by several armed guards, none of whom seemed particularly alert or interested in their assignment. Their ennui was understandable—even the most vigilant watchdog could be lulled into boredom by prolonged inactivity—but it would also be the opening he and Sydney needed. At her signal, he raised his gun and fingered the trigger.

They opened fire indiscriminately, going for a wide spread of bullets instead of careful aim, covering each other seamlessly. Four of the guards were mowed down easily, and the fifth got off only a few shots before taking four to the chest and tumbling down the stairs, leaving a crimson smear on the white marble.

Sydney passed her gun to Sark without a word and drew the flamethrower from her utility belt.

The fire quickly engulfed every piece of equipment, shattering glass and melting plastic, spreading to the bodies and filling the air with the smell of seared flesh. Sydney didn't blink at the heat, the stench, or the small chemical explosions; she stood firm in her tactical gear and stared into the glow of her private inferno, darting flames reflected in the darkness of her eyes. There was something almost inhuman about her, something both otherworldly and ruthless. She was an angel of destruction, come to exact her final reckoning upon the unrighteous. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

The scorching heat of the fire only increased until Sark felt it down to his bones. A bead of sweat formed at his temple and made its way down his cheek.

When Sydney was satisfied, she simply turned her back on the ruined equipment and walked away. He fell into step with her effortlessly, and as they walked the length of the main hall, she reached out and took his hand. Together, they left the burning wreckage behind and emerged into the clear, dark night.


	16. Chapter 16

Title by AFI, quote by Matchbox Twenty. I apologize for the absurd delay; in my defense, it might have had something to do with being on the other side of the world.

To everyone who reviewed and has been so very patient — you make my life better. Thank you. :)

**XVI. Of Greetings and Goodbyes**

_Yes, I am. I hope you think you beat me.  
__Hope I start talking crazy before you understand me. Are we through?  
__You think that I'm beneath you, but you like the things that I do.  
__Wrap 'em up and take 'em with you._

There were still some mornings when Sydney woke up and was disoriented, and it always took her a few muddled moments to piece things together. In bed, with Sark, naked. A little hung over. That was easy enough. It took her longer to remember that they were in Mexico now, but it all came back. Today was the day she would be returned to the CIA, and she tried very hard to believe that the turning of her stomach was only due to happy anticipation.

Ready or not . . . back to reality.

Such a simple realization, to change everything so drastically. She wouldn't wake Sark with a kiss today, though it had become almost a routine between them since Zurich. In fact, simply lying there in his arms felt strange and uncomfortable, as if it was the first time they'd slept together rather than . . . not.

She slid out of the bed and, after brief hesitation, went to take a shower. Standing under the spray of warm water, she heard the door handle jostle as he tried to enter, and she almost relented, almost unlocked the door and said _sorry; come on in._ Because she did want him to come in and make love to her against the pale blue tiled wall of the shower—and that was the point, really. As of today, he wasn't hers to want anymore.

No surprise there. That's what it had been all along: just a temporary arrangment, a short-lived dalliance with no promises and no future. As for what Sark had said last night . . . it meant nothing, she knew that. It was stupid to take a man at his word when he was under the influence of alcohol _or_ orgasm, let alone both. The truly stupid thing was that she didn't know what she dreaded more—that he'd meant it, or that he hadn't. Especially when she knew that he hadn't, didn't, wouldn't, and probably couldn't. When she'd expressed her concern about complications, she hadn't come close to imagining something like _this._

She watched foamy swirls of soap and shampoo circle the drain, eventually disappearing completely. It would have been easy to pretend there weren't tears stinging her eyes, but Sydney had a feeling she would be telling quite a few lies today. She didn't want to start by lying to herself.

Bringing clothes into the bathroom would have been a good idea, but it hadn't occurred to her at the time. Now there was nothing to do but face Sark wrapped in only a too-small hotel towel, which left her feeling distinctly and unpleasantly vulnerable to things like— well, like responding to him, when he kissed her as soon as she walked out. Despite her shower, his skin felt hot against hers. She clutched at the towel as if it were a life preserver rather than cheap terry cloth.

Her other hand, however, pressed tightly against against his scalp. His hair was longer than when he'd first found her. Softer.

When she broke away, she didn't make eye contact with him. He was already dressed, and she could feel him watching her as she rummaged through her suitcase and dug out a pair of jeans and a white tank top. What did he want, she wondered, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat. One last fuck before he collected his payment and made himself scarce?

By the time she actually looked at Sark, he was in the process of opening a nondescript pharmaceutical bottle. He placed two pills on the back of his tongue and swallowed. "Aspirin," he said by way of explanation. "After last night, I've developed quite a formidable headache." His smirk was half-hearted— tired and insincere—and she knew she wasn't being fair to him. Knew, deep down, that he didn't want to see her go.

She picked up one of their bottles of water and handed it over. "You shouldn't swallow them dry."

This time, the smirk was real. "Whatever you say, darling."

"How much time do we have?"

The question cut through all the meaningless things they might have said, exposing the morning for what it really was: a ticking clock, with every moment bringing them closer to the hour of separation. In a way, it was almost a relief to drop any pretense of normality—charitably assuming that Sydney Bristow and Julian Sark having an illicit affair could in any way be considered a standard of normalcy. Now even that was gone, dissipated like smoke.

"Not much longer," he replied, checking his watch. "Less than half an hour, in fact."

Her heart did _not_ constrict. "Cutting it a little close."

"As I recall, there were more pressing matters at hand that prevented me from setting an alarm. For example, being—"

"Yes, I remember," Sydney interrupted hastily.

He stepped close again and put his hands on her waist. Even if she'd been trying to look away from his face, it would have been difficult. As it was, she was furtively examining his mouth and silently listing the reasons she shouldn't kiss him. "You should know," he began softly, interrupting her train of thought, "you were amazing. Before, I mean." His eyes stared straight into hers, a sharp, penetrating blue.

Unable to shake the feeling that they weren't just talking about last night, she forced a small smile. "You weren't so bad yourself."

They kissed then, and she hated every second, because it felt like goodbye. Still, she clung to him, committing every feeling to memory: the tightness of his arms around her, the scrape of his incisors across her lip, the taste of his mouth on her tongue. She hated it, and hoped it would never end.

"We should . . ." There was something gratifying in the way Sark trailed off at first, resting his forehead against hers, gaining control over his breathing. "We should make the necessary preparations now," he finished.

"Right. Is there anything else you're supposed to bring?" Her voice was surprisingly level.

"No, but I'll be going directly to the airport after the exchange. Everything needs to be packed and moved into the car."

She nodded, grasping immediately onto this method of diverting her thoughts with manual labor. "How about I pack bags and you load them up?"

Unfortunately, the work went quickly, and it wasn't long before they were standing alone in the room again. Sark picked up the pair of handcuffs from the bedside table and proffered them to Sydney. "I'm afraid you'll have to wear these, for the sake of appearances."

"Yeah." She smiled ruefully and took them from his hand. "I had a feeling these weren't just for before."

"I assure you, I'd much rather be putting them to use in that capacity." His eyes, now pale grey, glinted deviously in the mid-morning light. He rubbed at the faint pink circles around his wrists in what she suspected was an unconscious gesture. Unconscious or not, she still started blushing, and used the restraints as an excuse to duck her head while she fastened one of the cuffs. Sark locked the other for her, his fingers barely lingering on her skin.

"You should probably cuff my ankles, too," she recommended. It was what she would have done, if Sark were her prisoner.

His mouth thinned, but she had no idea what he was thinking. "When we're in the car," he decided. "There's no point in limiting your mobility just yet." He made another cursory check of the room to make sure that nothing was being left behind, and appeared satisfied.

"Sark."

He turned and regarded her silently.

A lump was forming in her throat, making her breath hitch. Sydney licked her lips and tried to think of what to say. She wanted, more than anything, to kiss him again, but something told her that this moment existed in a delicate state of balance, propped on the shaky supports of their mutual self-control. One more kiss would not end anywhere except the bed. Whatever had formed between them had to end, and it had to end right now.

"We should go now." Despite her best efforts, her voice was husky and jagged.

Sark swallowed, nodded once, and moved to hold the door for her. They were soon en route to the Sonora Desert.

"What's the protocol for the meeting?" she asked about five minutes into the drive. All the things left unsaid between them were weighing on her mind, and she had no intention of continuing all the way to the exchange site like this.

"It's a straightforward exchange, really. The CIA team may consist of only three agents in a single van." He glanced at her before continuing, the briefest flash of blue-grey. "In compliance with my demands, one of those agents will be Jack Bristow."

Against all logic, the only thing she could think of was that it wasn't fair. Sark shouldn't be doing something like this for her. Not now, at the end, and not when she would never be able to thank him properly, or possibly repay the priceless gift he'd tossed her way. Her father . . . free . . . it was almost more than she could wrap her mind around, after so many hours of trying to devise a workable plan to secure his release. To be involved in this exchange, he would have to be restored to all his former security clearance, and once Langley reinstated an agent as skilled as Jack Bristow, they'd be reluctant to put him right back in jail.

"Sark . . ."

"There's no need to thank me. Superfluous demands are a time-honored method of concealing one's true agenda. You know that."

It shouldn't have stung, but it did. "And that's all it was?" she asked, twisting in her seat to watch him carefully.

"The ankle restraints are on the floorboard. You should put them on before we reach the exchange site."

"Fine," she snapped. "I will." Sydney turned back to face her window, not particularly caring if she was being petulant. She was scared and conflicted and not remotely in the mood to be toyed with. Would it kill him, just this once, to give her a straight answer? To let her know if he'd ever really been on her side?

Perhaps he didn't even possess enough empathy to understand what she was going through, but her turmoil bubbled close to the surface. The irony of it all was that if her memories had actually been erased, returning to the CIA would have been the most natural course of action in the world. There would have been no second thoughts, because she wouldn't remember those years as Julia Thorne—not quite an agent as she'd been before, but hardly the Covenant's puppet. For a few cruel hours, she might even have believed that she could still go home to a Michael Vaughn who loved her, a world where things made sense.

Knowing brought with it a convoluted string of choices. She wasn't even sure of the ones she'd already made, let alone the ones still facing her. Would it even be possible to reintegrate into her old life, knowing what she knew, surrounded on all sides by tactile proof of what she had lost?

In the far corner of her peripheral vision, she thought she saw Sark's shoulder rise and fall, as if with a sigh.

"Sydney." He was still watching the road, but his voice was intimate in its soft intensity. "There are some things which I truly believe to be beyond your capabilities. After the past two weeks, however, I consider this a situation you can most certainly handle."

It slipped out before she could think. "The past two weeks, I had _you._"

If he reacted—if his features betrayed even the slightest hint of what he was feeling—she saw no evidence of it. Driving one-handed, he veered off the road into the open desert, and dust swirled around the entire car before settling into a wake of whirling sand behind them.

Well, at least the lover who'd tried to kill her several times in the past had faith in her. That had to count for something.

"Thanks," she murmured, knowing he would hear.

The corner of his mouth barely quirked. They passed the rest of the drive in relatively companionable silence.

When the van came into sight, far in the distance across the utterly flat desert, butterflies didn't begin to describe the feeling in Sydney's stomach. Her bound hands tightened on her knees, and breathing suddenly became a conscious, labored process. This was it, _right now_, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was unprepared, as if she had forgotten something important and needed to go back and get it before any of this could happen.

The air conditioning in the rental car wasn't up to the challenge of beating the desert heat; a bead of sweat trickled from her hairline down her neck. As they approached, she saw the van's back doors open. Two small, indistinguishable figures emerged, and a third came out of the driver's side door.

Her father was probably one of the two who'd been in the back, but she couldn't tell which until they were about sixty yards away and she realized, with a harsh pang in her chest, that she recognized all three. Dixon stood in the middle, flanked on either side by her father and Kendall.

Sark stopped the car about thirty feet away. The sound of the parking brake made Sydney jump, and they both stared wordlessly at each other.

Finally, one side of his mouth tugged up in a smirk. "You know, Sydney . . . when I said 'good luck' . . . I really _wasn't_ mocking you."

A smile spread across her face even as her eyes filled with tears. "Yeah. I know."

He nodded slightly, almost to himself, as if something had been resolved. Perhaps, for him, it had. "Shall we?"

"Let's go," she said, willing her voice not to shake.

He got out of the car, gun drawn, and circled around to her side to let her out. The ankle cuffs impeded her progress considerably, and she couldn't suppress an irrational sense of betrayal regarding the gun Sark kept leveled squarely at her head as they approached the van. A hot wind blew her hair into her eyes, but she could still see the three figures waiting for her. The closer she got, the more details became clear: Dixon's blazing dark eyes and clenched fists; her father's stoicism marred by a barely perceptible look of longing for his lost daughter; the squinting, speculative expression on Kendall's face.

"Gentlemen," Sark called out, and she barely controlled her surprise. It was a tone she'd heard dozens of times from him, _before_, and she had never realized that it wasn't the way he'd spoken to her over the last month. Until now. "I trust you've brought the package."

Dixon never averted his contemptuous glare from Sark's face. It was Kendall who reached into the van and withdrew a nondescript metal briefcase.

"Bring it to me," instructed Sark. "Set it down on the ground next to Miss Bristow."

At a nod from Dixon, Kendall did so. His crusty façade cracked for a moment as he looked Sydney in the eye, and she nodded once to indicate that she was all right. She didn't particularly _feel_ all right, but that wasn't exactly the issue at hand. As Kendall retreated back to the others, she wondered what the hell could be in the briefcase. She also wondered if anyone would notice that Sark's restraining hand on her shoulder pressed gently into her skin, just once.

He had to holster his gun to take off the restraints, so he ducked behind Sydney, preventing the CIA agents from trying to shoot him. The jaws of all three men visibly tightened as Sark's arms circled around her body to remove the handcuffs. She tried not to lean into him.

When all her limbs were unfettered, Sark pointed the gun at her head once again. "Miss Bristow, if you would be so kind."

She passed him the case, which was surprisingly heavy, without looking at him. She didn't want to remember him like this; not if she could help it.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," he said more loudly—ostensibly to the others. As he lowered his gun, the barrel trailed ever-so-lightly down her spine, and then she heard his footsteps behind her, receding toward the car. This was it. No goodbye, no regret. No possibilities.

_I must say— that was rather anticlimactic._

For a moment, she was frozen. Then she started walking. She wanted to run, but was shaking too hard. She still closed the distance quickly.

"Dad," she said, her voice breaking, as she walked straight into his arms.

Jack held her tightly, almost painfully, with all his strength— with all the love and protection she'd never been willing to admit she needed. It had been so easy to take it for granted, even to resent it, when she had assumed he would always be there. "Sydney," he muttered in a tight, choked voice. That was all it took for her tears to overflow, and she let them fall, cocooned in her father's embrace. She buried her face in his shoulder and held on.

When she finally brought herself to let go, she was quickly swept into a fierce hug by Dixon. Over his shoulder, Kendall shot her the sardonic, affectionate half-smile she'd become accustomed to in her years as Julia Thorne. Despite the tears in her eyes, she managed to smile back.

By the time she looked back, across the dry plains of the Sonora Desert, Sark was long gone.

x x

Sydney was able to answer most of their questions honestly, simply because they had no inkling of what had actually happened. No, Sark hadn't hurt her. No, he hadn't tried to coerce secrets from her. No, she had no idea what he was planning to do next. Had she gathered any useful intelligence regarding possible weaknesses? That one almost made her laugh. Under the assumption that 'my legs' was not an appropriate response, she told them no.

No, she had no idea where he had been holding her prisoner. That lie stuck a little in her throat, but no one seemed to notice.

They took her to a CIA safehouse just outside of LA. Just a precaution, Dixon explained, for the first night. Apparently there was an empty apartment next door to Agent Weiss, set up with all the necessities, if that was all right with her. She assured them it was. The thought of Weiss was a surprisingly pleasant one—though it embarrassed her to admit it, she'd forgotten to count him among the friends she could still depend on. She would have bet money on the fact that his good-natured affability had not changed one iota while she was gone.

"I must say, Sydney, I'm surprised to see you in such good shape," Kendall commented as their group of four entered the safehouse, her three escorts presenting identification to the carefully concealed armed guards. "After we got that ransom video, I didn't know _what_ to expect."

The chill in her body seemed to center around her lungs, and she drew breath with care. "What video?"

Her father's poker face was firmly in place, but Dixon's anger and Kendall's discomfort were easier to read. "I have it here," said Kendall, drawing a thin, clear CD case from his briefcase and brandishing it in her direction. "If you want to see it, you can. You've got the clearance."

Meaning what? Were there parts of this situation she _didn't_ have the clearance to know about? Sydney pushed aside the thought and took the case.

"I don't have a laptop with me. You'll have to use the DVD player."

"O . . . Okay," she replied, slowly. She didn't like or understand the tension in the room, even though her own nervousness contributed to it. Setting up the DVD was no difficulty—she suppressed memories of doing the same in _his_ safehouse—and it wasn't long before her own image appeared on the screen.

She managed not to gasp. She had forgotten how wretched she'd looked in the beginning, but here was a solid reminder. Her unconscious body was slumped on a wooden chair in a dark, nondescript room. She was too pale, too thin, with dark circles under her closed eyes. Sark's voice jolted her forcibly out of her reverie, and she almost looked around the room for its source before realizing that he existed only in the video.

"Greetings. I trust you're all doing well in my absence— better, at least, than Agent Bristow. It seems I've stumbled upon quite the bargaining chip, wouldn't you agree?" The camera wasn't quite steady, proof that it was handheld rather than resting on a tripod. "If you're interested in keeping Miss Bristow relatively intact, I would advise you to provide a secure means for me to contact you. I will be in touch soon thereafter with a list of my demands."

"If you're finding yourselves tempted to take any sort of violent action," he continued, "I would advise against it. You see . . ." His foot lashed out, toppling the chair and Sydney with it. Her head struck the concrete floor with an unpleasant sound. ". . . the safety of your lost agent depends on your cooperation."

From her safe perch on an ottoman, Sydney reflexively raised a hand to the back of her head. The bruise there had stopped hurting a long time ago, but she remembered waking up with it throbbing. She remembered the look on Sark's face when she'd asked for Tylenol—a look she now knew was something like guilt.

"I trust I'll be hearing from you shortly," said Sark, and the screen went black.

"Well. That explains the headache," she muttered weakly, because she knew they were waiting for her reaction.

"Syd—"

"I'm fine, Dixon. I promise." She turned to face her old parter, looking right at him without subterfuge. She'd missed his dark, penetrating eyes so many times in her years with the Covenant, along with the kindness she knew lay underneath. "I can only assume he was trying to make a point, because he never laid a hand on me." That, of course, was such an immense lie that she half-expected her nose to grow. "Whatever he was after, it didn't involve hurting me."

"Well, you'll be fully debriefed in the morning," Kendall interjected. "We'll let you rest for now."

"Sydney." She immediately turned her attention to her father, who had been silent all this time. He hesitated. "There's a spare bedroom, just down the hall from yours. I'd like to stay here, if you don't mind."

She smiled broadly. Jack Bristow, asking for permission? "That would be great," she agreed, nodding.

"See you in the morning, Syd," said Dixon. "We'll send someone to bring you both to the Rotunda. And Syd?"

"Yeah?"

When Dixon smiled, all the anger and tension accumulated in his face dissolved as if it had never been. "It's good to have you back."

"Good to _be_ back," she replied, without having to think about it.

After all, it was the truth.

x x

Mikhail Basirov's shredded corpse didn't look any less grisly in photograph form. If anything, in fact, the relatively poor quality of Sark's cell phone camera had made it look worse. The blood was a more garish red, the skin more pallid and chalky. Beneath the image was the laconic text message that had accompanied it: _give me five days._

"And we gave you five days," said McKenas Cole. "Out of the goodness of our hearts. And here you are." He was standing by the window of the Covenant's London headquarters, champagne glass in hand, and as he spoke he turned back to look at Sark.

"You know, Julian — we're not too happy about what you did to Basirov. The guy had a lousy sense of humor, but still, a valuable asset's a valuable asset."

Sark barely raised an eyebrow at this. "Then I suppose you shouldn't have sent him to kill me."

"Yeah, well, 20/20 hindsight and all that," Cole acknowledged, gesturing with his fingers as if waving the argument away. "You sure did a number on ol' Bassy. Looked like he swallowed a live grenade for breakfast. And it was nothing personal, you know. We just got a little concerned about your wandering the globe all footloose and fancy-free. When you said two weeks until the exchange, we figured you'd be hangin' out in the ol' Galway safehouse."

"Circumstances changed. I was under the impression that you were interested in results, not my methods."

"Hey, no complaints here, brother-man. You had my double-thumbs-up from the get-go, and I hear the boss is real happy with that artefact you got for us. Looks to me like you're gonna fit in here just fine. Still— you didn't win lots of popularity points by using the Chosen One as a bargaining chip."

"Once your precious 'Julia Thorne' rejected her false identity, Sydney Bristow was of no further use to you," Sark reasoned unconcernedly. It surprised him that he could say her name so casually, with such nonchalance, but that was as it should be. "I, on the other hand, am prepared to offer you my full cooperation, should you decide to put an end to the assassination attempts. I assure you, I'm far more valuable to you alive."

"No doubt! I've got a good feeling about you, Julian. I think it's the hair." He drained the champagne glass and set it down on the table between them. Cole sat in the chair across from Sark and a faint flash of guile passed over his otherwise amicable expression. "We _are_ still gonna need that eight hundred million."

"Naturally."

"Okay then! Great!" Cole clapped his hands and rubbed them together briskly. "Miss Reed!" After a brief moment of confusion, Sark realized that he was not being directly addressed, by which time Cole was talking to him again. "I'm afraid the position we offered you before is no longer a solo job, per se," he said, chattering so quickly that some of the words ran together. "The big boss'll be glad to have you, but I'm afraid it's half or nothing."

"Meaning . . .?"

"There you are! Julian, you and Miss Reed here are gonna be working together to head the North American cell, so play nice and get along!"

Sark stood up and turned to see the new presence in the room— and found himself staring into a startlingly familiar face. The same long blond hair, the same incongruous dark eyebrows. What he'd taken for a look of disdain on the surveillance footage seemed to be an expression perpetually caught between a frown and a pout. The corners of that pouting mouth turned up in a small, predatory smile. "Mr. Sark."

"A pleasure," he murmured, and reached out to shake the hand of his father's killer.


	17. Chapter 17

Title by Weezer, quote from Saiyuki Reload.

**XVII. The World Has Turned and Left Me Here**

_Welcome back. Reality's a bitch._

Sydney didn't sleep well, and it was because Sark wasn't there. As much as she wanted to complicate (or completely deny) the causality of it, that was the pure and simple truth. All night long, she woke up wondering why she couldn't feel his arm around her waist or his breath on her neck.

It was driving her to distraction, and finally she gave up and slid out of bed. She put on the clothes from the day before, wondering if she would, at some point, stop losing everything she owned on a regular basis. Jeans and a tank top weren't quite what she'd imagined wearing on her return to the Rotunda office, to say the least, but there as nothing to be done. Before long, a van pulled into the driveway to take her and her father in, and they exited the safehouse together.

As she'd suspected, Jack had been reinstated to his former status as a CIA agent, his record wiped clean. Apparently the Rotunda's NSC liaison, a man named Robert Lindsay, was none too pleased about this, but her father seemed thoroughly unconcerned about Lindsay's dissenting opinion. No surprise there.

Jack had filled her in on the rest of what she'd missed in a tone so dry it couldn't possibly be mistaken for gossip. Vaughn had left the CIA after her apparent death, only to return a little more than a year later, about a month after his and Lauren's wedding. Dixon had been promoted to head of the task force about a year ago, when Kendall became increasingly involved in his responsibilities with the DSR. Agent Weiss—the only one of their small group of field agents who was there for the entire two-year stretch—had fared well, all things considered. Marshall and Carrie, to Sydney's delight, were expecting a baby.

It was strange to think that after so many changes, the old team would be back together upon her return—her, Dixon, Vaughn, Weiss, Jack and Marshall. She wondered how the others were coping with the news of her being alive. According to her father, Vaughn and Weiss and Marshall had been told only a few days before the exchange, for security reasons. Were they relieved? Hurt? Angry about the CIA and DSR's willful concealment of the truth?

She still recognized the streets as if she hadn't gone a day without seeing them, and she knew they were getting close. Instead of following her old protocol, they drove straight to the broken pay phone. The agent in the van's passenger seat, a security guard, punched in the code and escorted them into the building.

The impulse to grab on to her father's arm was strong, but she resisted. Instead, she clenched her hands tightly and tried to think calm thoughts. Beaches. Candlelight. Soothing music. Hot baths. Sark's fingers trailing across her bare spine.

On the second thought, perhaps that last one was better put as far out of mind as humanly possible.

The CIA's resident technical genius was the first to cross their path, and he immediately stopped in his tracks. "Syd!" Marshall exclaimed, wide eyed with excitement. As soon as she held out her arms, he hugged her with all his might.

"It's great to see you, Marshall," she told him warmly. She remembered how incredibly boring op-tech had been without his colorful explanations of her latest gadgets. Kendall could never be bothered for more than a basic explanation and a brusque set of instructions.

"You too! And of course, you too, Mr. Bristow," he added as he let go of Sydney and looked at Jack. "Would you, uh, like a hug, or — ?"

"That won't be necessary." Jack's expression clearly implied that any kind of hugging activity would directly provoke loss of life and limb.

"Right. Uh, they're waiting for you in the briefing room— I was just there too, actually— I'm running an analysis on this biohazard toxin for Mister—uh, Director Dixon— really cool stuff, by the way, if you're ever interested I could… explain it… for you…" There was an inverse correlation between the speed of Marshall's words and the intensity of Jack's glare, and soon Marshall just pointed towards the briefing room. "In there."

"Thank you," said Jack, stolid as always, and headed towards the room. In his wake, Marshall visibly gulped and shot Sydney a wan half-smile she'd become accustomed to seeing when mere mortals crossed paths with Jack Bristow. Before following her father, she allowed her eyes to roam across the loud, bustling room, searching out familiar faces and half-hoping she wouldn't see any. She caught sight of Weiss, but he was on the phone across the room, facing away.

She sighed quietly to herself and went into the briefing room, mentally rehearsing her story as she walked. As she'd anticipated, it was only a matter of minutes before she was called upon to recite that story for Kendall, Dixon, her father, and an unpleasant-looking man introduced as Robert Lindsay.

The first part of her explanation was addressed to Kendall. "After I sent you that video, I went to see a neurologist named Carlo Galvani. As I said, he had developed a technique for erasing memories that seemed promising— risky, but promising. Now, I don't know if my brain somehow rejected the procedure, or if Galvani was just incompetent, but next thing I knew I was out on the street and I couldn't remember _anything._ That's how Sark found me."

"He knocked me out with a sedative and took me hostage. I'm not sure where we were—the room he held me in was pretty nondescript—but I was kept comfortable. We didn't really have much interaction." Sydney interlaced her fingers on the table and wove together facts and lies with the artful skill of a professional. "He kept me apprised of the negotiations with the CIA, but that was about it. I got the impression that I was just a means to an end for him," she concluded, hoping none of them were perceptive enough to see how badly she wanted that assessment to be inaccurate.

"Were you aware of Sark having any visitors?" asked Dixon.

One thing she'd learned well as a double agent: if information won't hurt your story or your cover, share it. Details can provide a foundation of credibility to support a complex web of lies. "Just one. McKenas Cole. How did he get out, by the way?" she asked as her audience reacted. "I thought he was in custody."

"That's a… complicated story," said Kendall, clearly unwilling to divulge details at the moment. "You said he visited Mr. Sark? Do you have any idea why?"

"I heard most of the conversation, actually; the walls were pretty thin. He wanted Sark to work for the Covenant. He claimed they were responsible for getting Sark out of jail— and how did _that_ happen?" she demanded, interrupting herself. "Is there anybody _left_ in custody, or did they all just—"

"Sydney," Jack muttered on her left. A reprimand and a warning. It had been a long time since she'd had to act like an agent in any normal sense of the word.

"We still don't know how that happened," Kendall admitted with a frustrated shrug. "One day he's here in your mother's old cell, the next morning he's disappeared, everything still locked up tight. All the security guards swore they didn't see a thing."

"Half of them could be in league with the Covenant," snapped Lindsay. "If it was up to me, I would have ordered enhanced interrogation for all of them."

"That wasn't your decision to make," said Dixon, leveling a baleful look at Lindsay that advised him to keep his mouth shut.

Ah, inter-agency politics. This was something she hadn't missed even on her worst days. "Cole offered to let him head the North American cell, but Sark turned him down," she told them, hoping that a return to her story would quell the bickering at least temporarily. "He said he wanted to keep working freelance."

She wasn't imperceptive enough to miss the look that passed between Kendall and Dixon, but she still didn't know what it meant. Perhaps they were as surprised as she had been that Sark would turn down a chance to be a well-placed subordinate, as it was a position in which he'd thrived often enough before.

"You said you couldn't remember anything," said Kendall. "I'm assuming that changed?"

"Yes. My memories came back pretty quickly. I think, more than anything, Galvani's procedure just confused me. There don't seem to be any lasting effects."

"All right, good. You should get checked out later today, just to be safe; they'll be expecting you."

Great. More people poking around in her brain. "Okay."

Dixon picked up the conversation from there, moving smoothly into the CIA's side of the transaction. "Aside from your father's release, Sark's demands were pretty straightforward: a full pardon and a million dollars in ransom."

"Wait," she said immediately, utterly confused. "That doesn't make any sense. Sark just inherited eight hundred million dollars after his father's death. Why would he be asking for more money from the CIA?"

"Who was his father?" asked Dixon. His forehead was creased in consternation.

"Andrian Lazarey."

"A Russian diplomat," her father explained to the room at large. "And a descendant of the Romanovs, which explains the size of Sark's inheritance. I received unconfirmed reports that Lazarey had been assassinated before I was . . . detained."

"So you're saying that Sark inherited nearly a billion dollars?" Dixon repeated. "Is it possible that _he_ arranged for Lazarey to be killed?"

"My guess would be that it was the Covenant," said Sydney, vaguely uncomfortable with the way that all eyes were once more on her. "Cole wanted Sark to give them the money; if they assassinated Lazarey in the first place _and_ got Sark out of custody, it could be they just want to get their hands on the inheritance."

"And what better way than to play on Sark's tendency to shift allegiances to the highest bidder," her father mused.

"Exactly."

The briefing continued from there as it had begun— long, dull, and incredibly frustrating. The last thing she wanted to do was rehash the last month, trying to keep track of her carefully crafted lies while simultaneously staving off memories she had no intention of sharing.

It was nearly two hours before she was dismissed, and the drawn-out debrief combined with her lack of sleep the night before—and even the night before that, for a very different reason—had Sydney feeling as if she'd just taken on a freight train and been utterly defeated. She trudged over to the desk where she'd seen Weiss before, and her mind blearily noted that he was talking to another agent—then jolted her into full awareness with the realization that it was Vaughn.

She had a moment to compose herself before he noticed Weiss' half-joyful, half-worried expression and turned his head, and she tried to brace herself for what was coming. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

It didn't matter that they looked at each other across an irreparable chasm of lost time, separated not just by years, but by Lauren and Simon and Sark and even Julia herself. Her pounding heart seemed to have forgotten that he had forsaken and replaced her, forced her to spend the most difficult two years in her life without her anchor—her guardian angel—supposedly, her soul mate. Even the fact that she didn't _want_ to love Michael Vaughn anymore didn't feel important.

Just looking into those shocked, wounded green eyes was like a knife between her ribs, piercing and deep. It was a large jumping of emotional tracks, going straight from mentally exhausted listlessness to the verge of tears, but being highly emotional gave her a special skill for things like that. Goddammit.

Weiss made an excuse that neither of them really heard and hightailed it into Marshall's office.

"Vaughn," she whispered without thinking.

What did he see when he looked at her? Did he feel the slightest twinge of guilt, or was she simply a painful part of his past, freshly resurrected?

"Syd."

His arms around her body, his face tucked into her shoulder—the familiar touch burned like a corrosive acid, and if she had been stronger, she would have screamed. Pushed him away. Slammed her knee into his stomach. Not hugged him back as if he had the right to hold her.

They separated and looked at each other again, wordlessly. There was nothing to say. He knew what he'd done. He either cared or he didn't.

"Kendall said that you . . . that you tried to come back. To see me."

"Yes." Even on that one syllable, her voice cracked, high and immeasurably pained.

"Syd, I'm—"

"_Don't_." She shook her head so fiercely that the tears she'd tried to blink back spilled down her face. "Don't you _dare._"

It was too much. It was too damn much. She'd lost Francie, Will, Vaughn, her entire _life_ for god's sake and after two years they expected her to come back to the CIA and be Agent Sydney Bristow again. As if she could ever be the same person she'd been before, after all she'd been through.

"All this time… I thought you were dead." His eyes, imploring her to understand, were full of long-buried pain.

Sydney just looked at him, her jaw clenched, wrapped in the protective shield she called Julia Thorne.

"And I thought you loved me."

There was no point in saying anything else. Whether she said six words or six thousand, he would either understand what he had put her through or he would continue to wallow in his own self-pity, willfully oblivious to what he'd done. Because of that, and because she just couldn't stand to look at him for one more second, Sydney turned on her heel and left. She didn't actually leave the building, since she didn't know where she lived just yet. She did, however, get the hell out of the rotunda in favor of the offices on the lower floors. One office in particular, which she hoped had retained its former occupant over the past two years.

She made eye contact with no one as she navigated the hallways, holding on to the shredded remnants of her control by a thread. Her hand trembled as she pulled open the door and entered without knocking.

Dr. Barnett looked up from her desk, and her blue eyes widened. She didn't look shocked; in all likelihood she'd already been apprised of the situation. After Sydney's ordeal, it made sense that the CIA would want her to visit their top psychologist. Couldn't be too careful. Even the best agents can crack.

Feeling absolutely overwhelmed and long past her breaking point, Sydney practically hurled herself onto the couch. She slid out of her shoes and curled her legs beneath her, long past caring about acting mature or dignified. All she wanted was her mother—not Irina Derevko, but Laura Bristow, the devoted and loving and safe woman of her childhood who would never, ever let anything hurt her. How fitting, that the one thing she needed now had never even been real.

"It's good to see you, Sydney."

Barnett smiled gently, her eyes crinkling generously at the corners. Clearly, she meant it. She was truly happy to have her back, which Sydney found both touching and surprising. It was easier, seeing that, to accept her kindness without searching it for traces of condescension.

Sydney didn't have her mother. She didn't have Vaughn. She didn't have Will, or Francie . . . or Sark. But there were still people who cared about her.

Perhaps that would be enough.

She tried to speak, but choked, her eyes brimming with moisture yet again.

"I need to talk," she managed, attempting a feeble smile, and then burst into tears.

x

When she was finally escorted to her new apartment, Sydney stood just inside the door for a while, trying to absorb this new living space. It was fully furnished down to the knick-knacks on the tables, a few of which were lightly damaged and painfully familiar—relics from her old home, survivors of the fire.

She went into the bedroom first, as was only fitting. All kitchens were basically alike to her, and it wasn't as if she'd have a lot of time to spend lounging on the couches. The bed, on the other hand, was going to become her friend from day one. She hopped experimentally onto the mattress and found it acceptably comfortable—not so firm that she'd be unable to sleep on it, and not so soft that she'd rather shoot her alarm clock than get out of bed.

It was very tempting to flop into a prone position and take a nice, long nap, given her recent lack of sleep and a morning that had utterly drained her, but she was forestalled by the sight of a small white envelope on her dresser. It was unassuming and inconspicuous, lying there and waiting politely to be noticed, but something about that little envelope had her on her feet in an instant. She knew that people had been in and out of the house dozens of times, delivering furniture and probably even putting food in the kitchen, but she also knew, with perfect certainty, that this envelope was separate from all of that.

She approached it carefully, as if it might explode. Stranger things had happened. There was a name written on the outside in slightly extravagant script.

_Mrs. Maria Svensson._

Appallingly, Sydney laughed out loud at this, covering her mouth with one hand, like a delighted child discovering hidden treasure. She immediately snatched up the envelope and slit it open with a fingernail—she'd kept them long, the evidence of which was probably still visible on Sark's body.

The elaborate font continued on the note within, but she looked past the curlicues and began to read:

_My darling Maria—_

_I cannot bear the thought of separation from you, though the reasons might be compelling. I like it very much to think that we have, if nothing else, these memories of our best days together, memories of love our good luck brought us. So until your sister's recovery, we will wait to see what tomorrow brings. Each night, no dream other than holding you again shall I dream. The days will seem empty without you._

Sydney hadn't even finished before she recognized the absurdly simple pattern—every fourth word—and began to translate mentally. _I thought you might like to have these . . . best of luck until we see each other again . . . the . . . empty?_ "The empty?" What the hell was that supposed to mean?

She flipped over the note, but there was nothing else. And no matter how many times she rechecked, the last part simply didn't fit.

It couldn't be that she'd been wrong about the first part— the note wasn't even that well done, the language stilted and strange. The revealed message, on the other hand, was entirely like Sark, and made perfect sense, all things considered. Presumably, he'd found some way of returning her things. But… the empty?

She had no idea what to make of it. Using one of her father's more obscure ciphers, it turned into a phrase involving meatballs, but that seemed like a bit of a reach. After making the rest of the note so incredibly easy to decode, why would the last sentence be so fiendishly complicated? Could he possibly have hidden some aspect of his endgame in this innocuous little note—and if so, did he intend for her to figure it out herself, or take it to the CIA?

For the time being, she set the note down, planning to subject it to much more intense scrutiny later. Perhaps Marshall could help out, if sworn to secrecy.

Sydney looked through the closet and drawers to confirm what she already knew, and sure enough, there was Julia Thorne's clothing, neatly folded and immaculate. God only knew how he'd managed to transport it all yet _again_. She was just browsing through the assortment of leather jackets and coats when the doorbell rang. After carefully closing everything and slipping the note into a convenient drawer, she went to answer it.

Weiss was standing on her welcome mat, holding a six-pack of beer and beaming at her.

"Hi!" she exclaimed, and couldn't help smiling widely in response. "I'm sorry— I didn't get a chance to say hello back at—"

"Oh, it's totally fine," he assured her, waving away the apology. "I could tell you had some, uh, stuff to deal with."

"Great to see you again." Sydney stepped over the threshhold and hugged him, beers and all. "I've missed you."

"Yeah! Same here, except . . . well, you know," he concluded, simultaneously acknowledging and dismissing the fact that he'd grieved for her in the belief that she'd died in the fire. Holding a grudge had never been one of Weiss' foremost talents, to say the least, and she was grateful for that now.

At that point it occurred to her that he probably didn't want to just stand in the doorway. "Come on in!" she said, stepping aside.

Weiss examined her new apartment with the cheerfully complacent air he brought to most things when he was off-duty. "Nice place. I mean, granted, I was the one who picked out most of the furniture, but—"

"Really?" It wasn't that the furniture was something truly spectacular. It just felt better, somehow, knowing that a friend had done it.

"Yeah. Why, is it awful?" He looked around at his handiwork with an expression of exaggerated worry.

"No, it's great. Thank you."

"Hey, no problem. I just figured you can always replace stuff if you want. I tried asking Mike for advice but— um." Looking painfully aware of how badly he'd just lodged his foot in his mouth, Weiss cleared his throat loudly and attempted to press on. "_So_, I figured you could use some beer right about now."

"Absolutely," she agreed immediately, and took the bottle he offered her without hesitation.

"By the way—it is _great_ to have you and your dad back," he told her as they settled into their respective pieces of Weiss-picked furniture. "The replacement agents they brought in were a complete nightmare."

Sydney laughed at the earnestness of his dismay. "Really? What were they like?"

"Oh, this really nervous blond girl and this guy— he just walked around looking . . . sullen. All the time. Which, I mean, works for your dad, but totally did _not_ work for this guy. Seriously, the less said about those two, the better."

"Good to know I'm not so easily replaced," she said with a grin.

An expresson passed over Weiss' face somewhere between discomfort and pain. "Syd . . ."

Oh. Crap. "Eric, I— I didn't mean it like that." She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked down at her beer for a few seconds, until she knew her smile would look genuine. "I'm fine, really. I mean . . . I will be. It was just . . ." she ruthlessly swallowed down the lump in her throat. "It was just hard, is all."

"Yeah. I know," he muttered. His entire face was lined with sympathy, and as much as she wanted to believe she didn't need it, she loved him for it.

"But everybody gets their heart broken sometime, right?" Every ridge on the bottle was pressed into her fingers as her hand did its best to clench into a fist. Beads of condensation were squeezed out from between her skin and the glass, and her joints began to ache with the strain.

"Right." Weiss drained a fair percentage of his beer in one large gulp, then regarded Sydney with a clear spark of inspiration in his bright somber eyes.

"Let me tell you," he said, "about Sally Benson."

x

They found out the next morning, when Dixon called everyone into the briefing room. Sydney sat with Marshall and her father at one long table, facing Lindsay, Vaughn, and Weiss. Kendall wasn't around, presumably because he'd served his purpose and was back to the DSR. She found herself wishing she'd had the chance to thank him properly before he returned to his world of secrets more carefully guarded than even the CIA's most covert operations.

Dixon stood and hesitated, for a moment, staring down at the remote in his hand as if unsure what purpose it might serve. The moment passed, he pressed a button, and the large monitor in the room sprang to life, displaying a grainy shot of a man on a cell phone.

"You all recognize Mr. Sark," he said, and Sydney's gut twisted violently. "Sources spotted him in London the day before yesterday, when this picture was taken. He proceeded to enter a building we believe to be owned by the Covenant. Later that evening, he accessed and withdrew the entirety of his inheritance—eight hundred million in gold bouillon."

She was going to throw up. This wasn't possible, this wasn't real.

"I don't understand," she interruped. It wasn't until she saw the others' faces that she realized how terrible her voice sounded. "Are you saying that Sark is working for the Covenant now? After all that?"

Dixon's face could have been carved from stone. "It would seem so."

"It's possible that he was blackmailed," said Jack, always the strategist. "The Covenant might not be inclined to take no for an answer."

"That would certainly fit in with everything we've seen from them before," said Vaughn.

"There's another possibility." Dixon was sitting down again, his fingers tightly interlaced on his desk. "As one of the conditions of Sydney's release, Sark demanded a Rambaldi artefact from the DSR storage facility. An hourglass. He might have used that to solidify his position within the Covenant."

"Wait, what?" Weiss asked, speaking for everyone. "This is the first I've heard about this."

Sydney bit down on one of her knuckles and tried not to go stark raving mad in front of everyone. Now was not the time to scream.

"The details of the exchange were being kept confidential, until now."

"Well, do we have any idea why the Covenant might be interested in this hourglass?" asked Vaughn, glancing unintentionally at Sydney, his forehead furrowed.

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of information. It looks like we'll have to consult an expert on this one."

"Sloane," Jack realized almost immediately.

"I don't like it," said Dixon, "but there aren't many other options."

"I'll do it," she said, making eye contact with no one, and her voice was just as broken and harsh as before. "I'll talk to him."

"Not alone. I'm going with you."

Dixon nodded at her father's demand. "You'll both go. You're the two people he's most likely to talk to."

"Ms. Reed is Sloane's handler," Lindsay snapped, speaking up for the first time that morning. "She can ask any questions about this artefact you need to—"

"The matter is decided, Bob," Dixon told him levelly. "Sydney, Jack—wheels up in five hours."

Lindsay stayed behind to argue, but the rest of the agents dispersed. Sydney exited the briefing room with the rest, and made her way slowly, aimlessly, over to one of the rotunda's massive round columns. She tried very hard not to feel so . . . used. So utterly betrayed.

It made perfect sense—this was Sark, after all. He'd seen an opportunity for profit and he'd taken it. And after a dry spell of two years, of course he'd jumped at the chance to sleeping with her when she threw herself at him. The great part was that he had actually convinced her there might be anything more to it than that. And she had bought it, hook, line, and sinker— had believed that he might, in some small way, give a damn about her. Now _that_ was rich.

A pardon and a hefty reward from the CIA. A prominent position within the Covenant. A few rolls in the sack with Sydney Bristow. If there was one thing Sark had always known how to do, it was how to play the field to his advantage by manipulating all the key players—a trick he'd probably picked up from her mother.

Could he possibly want revenge? Had he been so attached to Allison that he still harbored a grudge against her killer? It didn't seem plausible, but why else go through the elaborate deception of feigning affection, unless to inflict as much pain as possible?

"Hey, Syd?"

She turned and saw, to her surprise, Marshall standing behind her, wringing his hands a little in one of his typical nervous tics. "Hey," she replied, and wondered how many smiles she'd had to force or fake in the last seventy-two hours. Here was another for the tally.

"Look, about this whole, uh, Sark thing . . ." His forehead creased in sympathy. "I wouldn't take it too hard, if I were you. I mean . . . Sark, y'know, you can never tell which way he's gonna . . . and besides, I . . ." He glanced back and forth, then stepped closer. "I think you should know th—"

"Marshall!" Jack's voice, clear and sharp, cut through both Marshall's sentence and his air of confidentiality. Her father was holding a case file and looking, unsuprisingly, impatient.

"I should go," said Marshall regretfully, but he was on the move before he'd even finished speaking. "Yes, Mr. Bristow?"

Oh, well. It wasn't a big deal; she knew what he'd been trying to say anyway. Having been so utterly deceived by Sloane, whom he'd trusted as a beloved employer—perhaps even a friend—Marshall naturally could sympathize with her sense of betrayal. She appreciated the sentiment, but this kind of betrayal was beyond what had happened at SD-6. To face this from Sark, who had played his part so flawlessly, who had—

She couldn't even think of it. All she knew was that when she found Sark, he would have no mercy. And whether she killed him on sight, or if she kept him around long enough for the bastard to feel every inch of the agony he was putting her through . . . well, that would probably depend on what mood she happened to be in at the time. She was going to bring the Covenant crashing down around itself, and if she could help it, Julian Sark would be the very first casualty.


	18. Chapter 18

**XVIII. Still Ain't Over You**

_Better never to have met you in my dream  
__than to wake and reach for hands that are not there._

"Sydney. Jack. What a pleasant surprise."

It was a perfectly acceptable greeting, discarding the fact that Sloane looked neither surprised nor particularly pleased. His eyes did linger on Sydney, however, with a familiar and infuriating glint. _I know something you don't know._

"Director Dixon has sent us here on official business," said Jack. "It would be in your best interest to cooperate."

"Of course I'll do my best— it's good to see you're still alive, Sydney. You look more like your mother every day." He ignored the matching and implacable glares this statement earned, choosing instead to sit back down at his desk. "Well then. How can I be of assistance?"

The Bristows exchanged a quick glance; her father gave her a slight nod. Sydney stepped forward. "Prior to Sark's defection to the Covenant—" there, how lightly the words could pass her lips "—he requested a Rambaldi artifact from the CIA. The—"

"In exchange for what?" Sloane interrupted.

Jack's brow furrowed and he looked at Sydney again. It was something he expected Arvin to have learned from his old contacts. "For Sydney's safe return."

"I see." He stared into Sydney's eyes with the look of a man who is putting two and two together and enjoying the process immensely.

"The request was granted," she continued stiffly. "Now we need any information you can give us on this hourglass."

A light flashed in Arvin Sloane's dark eyes, and they both saw. It made his next words that much harder to take. "You should have called ahead, Sydney, instead of wasting so much time. I'm afraid there are some Rambaldi secrets of which even I have barely skimmed the surface. I believe there may be a few references to the object, in the old documents . . . odd references to a "Passenger" . . . but nothing clear. Nothing that might be useful."

In the faint reflection on the glass wall, she saw her father's lip curl. "Then I guess we're done here."

Outside the Omnifam building, Sydney ran a rough hand through her hair. "The bastard knows _something_!"

"Clearly," agreed Jack. "But so long as the CIA trusts him, we have no choice but to take him at his word."

"Dixon doesn't trust him."

Jack's mouth twitched, a tiny expression of frustration and futility masquerading as a half-smile. "Even Dixon has to take orders."

"And for all we know, Sloane could be helping the Covenant." They moved with smooth efficiency through the crowded streets of Zurich to their car, parked several blocks away.

"Possible. Even likely, if they share his obsession with Rambaldi."

"What about the device he was building before I was taken, _Il Dire_? Could it be related?"

Jack squinted, looking ahead for the car and any possible threats. "According to Sloane, the entirety of the machine's message was a single word. _Peace._"

"Oh, god. Please tell me that no one actually took him seriously."

Her father shrugged with a sideways tilt of his head. "It couldn't be disproved—and given his newfound humanitarianism, few people were inclined to argue."

A thought struck her. "Wait. Irina . . . doesn't my mother's name mean peace?"

"Yes, it does." Jack only sighed; clearly the thought had occurred to him as well and gone nowhere. "Personally, I would have found it anticlimactic," he mused, "that, after expecting to assemble a weapon of ultimate power, he ended up with a revelation he could have acquired from a fortune cookie."

Sydney grinned broadly at him and was rewarded with a smile that, if still small, was at least completely real. She swung herself into the passenger seat of the rented sedan and put her gun in the glove compartment. Back to Los Angeles, then, with no more credible information than they'd arrived with. But despite the complete lack of actual progress or improvement . . . for the moment, driving through Switzerland with her dad, everything seemed okay.

x

Sark snapped his cell phone shut and tapped it thoughtfully on the table. The abduction of Arvin Sloane had gone without a hitch the night before, apparently excellent news for the Covenant— now if only he knew _why._ Perhaps he should have paid closer attention to Sloane and Derevko's half-worshipful mutterings about the 15th century inventor-prophet Rambaldi. At the time he'd found it difficult to even take them seriously. Now that his ascension in this shadowy organization could depend on it . . . But his thoughts were interrupted by familiar clacking heels on the floor outside.

Reed sauntered in, as usual, on her lunch break to pass on the information she'd gleaned from her unwitting husband during the previous week. She might not have been able to secure a job in the rotunda office as she'd hoped, but the intelligence she managed to gather was substantial nonetheless. The husband she'd coaxed back into the CIA seemed remarkably willing to share—whether because of her feminine wiles or her high security clearance was anyone's guess.

"The CIA found out you're working for the Covenant," she told Sark right away, searching his face for a reaction she hadn't yet learned she wouldn't see. "According to Michael, no one was surprised except Sydney Bristow. You must have really had her convinced." Lauren's full lips curved into the smile she usually gave him, half sly and half seductive. Another thing she hadn't learned was that he wasn't remotely interested, but he enjoyed watching her efforts. It amused him, on a rather peurile level, to know that Michael Vaughn was apparently incapable of keeping his wife satisfied.

Then again, the CIA's boy scout was unlikely to fathom _any_ of the appetites harbored by his supposedly doting spouse, whether a lust for power or . . . other predilections. Sark had already witnessed Lauren's talent for deception; it was nothing short of superb. Nearly on par, in fact, with his own.

Hurting Sydney, however . . . that had never been part of the plan. It took nothing less than extraordinary circumstances for him to feel remorse over any course of action; causing Sydney pain should not have met that requirement, but it seemed to do the trick quite handily. An intolerable chink in his armor, and one that he had hoped would cease to be an issue now that he had put safe distance between himself and the unwelcome complications she so easily produced.

He met Lauren's eyes and smirked. The truth was that if it hadn't been for Sydney, he might have been tempted.

"As I'm sure you've discovered, these CIA agents can be tricked into believing the best of even the most despicable person— a tendency quite simple to exploit."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction. Like most of the things he said to her, the comment skirted the line between a simple statement and a carefully concealed insult, but she had yet to make an issue of it. That was wise. She could be an amusing diversion, but his patience with his new partner was wearing thin.

This entire situation with the Covenant was frustrating in the extreme. He did not appreciate losing millions of dollars to become a glorified foot soldier, an arrangement which would be nearly impossible to change until he got an idea of who was actually behind this bizarre and well-connected group.

The two weeks of traveling with Sydney hovered in his mind like the memory of a pleasant vacation: no elaborate plans, no authority to be obeyed. Just the two of them and their false identification, flying across the world to wreak havoc on the very organization that now had employed him. At best, the two of them in bed (_wall, shower, floor, elevator, table, airplane lavatory_…). But those memories were nothing now but a distraction, irrelevant to the task at hand.

As they went over the rest of Reed's information, Sark did his best to concentrate—pushing aside, with utter ruthlessness, all errant thoughts of Sydney Bristow.

x

One night, going home from the Rotunda took Sydney longer than it should have; she slipped into the automatic habits of driving and turned onto the road that led to her old apartment. When she realized what she'd done she cursed and chalked it up to exhaustion. Their efforts against the Covenant were keeping her in the office for long hours with no apparent progress, and she still wasn't sleeping well.

Vaughn was avoiding her as well as he could. It was the best thing for them—it was what she wanted—she hated every second. Lauren visited one day with Robert Lindsey, and she'd been more than upset. She wanted to rip out the other woman's throat. She could have distracted herself and talked to Weiss, or Marshall, or even gone back to Barnett. Instead Sydney pretended to care about a worthless set of surveillance reports, constructing a mental catalogue of the things she hated about Lauren Reed. The smug, superior and apparently unremovable pout sat near the top of that list.

It seemed Sark's betrayal had removed the last of her emotional insulation. Not only was she the fool who'd thought Michael Vaughn would never give up on her; now she was the inexcusable idiot who had actually begun to trust in Julian Sark. But a weakened, emotionally damaged agent would do the CIA no good, so she was compartmentalizing once again. Julia Thorne had been showing up for work more and more often.

The clarity of that persona was perhaps the greatest blessing, in that it reminded her—coldly, objectively—of her own strength. These circumstances weren't nearly enough to break _her_. She was Sydney and Julia, a Bristow and a Derevko, and the actions of two _men_ could only hurt her down to a certain point. The storm would pass as it always did, leaving her lonely, perhaps, but more capable than ever.

Pulling into the driveway, she noticed movement between her and the front door. It was too dark to distinguish features, but it was a tall male figure and it appeared to be waiting for her. Calling someone never occurred to her; she had a gun in hand before she cut the engine, and she immediately bolted from her seat before the intruder could take aim. Her arm swung true to where she'd seen motion . . .

"No! Syd, it's me!"

Vaughn stepped out of the shadows so that she could see his face, and his arms raised in surrender. "It's me."

"Prove it," she snarled—wondering, in the back of her mind, if knowing it was Vaughn would actually make her less likely to shoot.

"The first time we met, your hair was bright red. I gave you the name of a dentist."

She holstered the weapon, not without reluctance. "What do you want?"

"I . . . I need to talk to you."

Sydney could feel her father's icy glare stiffening her jaw. "I'm not interested." She moved toward the house, but he sidestepped, intercepting her.

"Syd, wait."

It was his tone of voice that did it; low, rough, breaking under the weight of rage and despair. She really looked at him for the first time and took in how pale he was, the ill, disheveled look of a man who had been pushed beyond endurance and the wild dark eyes of one who didn't much care.

"What the hell happened to you?" she asked, and all her intended harshness evaporated.

"Inside."

She nodded once, still searching his face for a hint of what had occurred. He followed her closely into the house, like a shadow; as she unlocked and opened the door it was impossible not to remember. _The Zamboni's your favorite part? No, coming home with you after the game is my favorite part . . . the Zamboni is a close second._ It was hard, nearly three years later, to imagine him entering her home under more different circumstances.

Vaughn sat at the kitchen table and buried his face in his hands before lifting his head to stare unwaveringly at Sydney.

"Lauren is working for the Covenant."

_Shit._

"You . . ." She was sitting diagonally from him without being entirely sure of how it had happened. "Vaughn, are you sure?"

"Yes," he hissed. His fists were clenched, white-knuckled, on the table. "We found another source . . . footage of Lazarey's murder. I used Marshall's restoration program, it . . . it was her," he said, nodding half to himself. "She killed him."

It didn't feel real. This most intimate, most devastating of betrayals, suffered twenty years ago by Jonathan Donihue Bristow—it could not be happening to Vaughn; it simply could not. Everything—her affair with Sark, Vaughn's abandonment and marriage, but especially, _especially_ this ugly revelation, as if Sydney's uncontrollable hatred of Lauren Reed had brought about its own justification—it was all just patently absurd, a poorly constructed nightmare, and she was ready to wake up.

And yet, Vaughn was still speaking.

"That was yesterday. I didn't . . ." He shuddered, and his fists tightened further. "I couldn't believe it. I thought there had to be some explanation, so I— I didn't say anything. And she came home that night and we— I still—"

"I don't want to hear it," she told him, trying to force gentleness into her cold tone.

"Then I found her second cell phone and I redialed the last number she'd called. It was McKenas Cole."

"Have you told Kendall? Dixon?" she corrected herself.

"No." His lip curled and somehow, his green eyes looked black as pitch. "I wanted to kill her."

"Vaughn—"

"I know! I know," he growled. His hands twitched spasmodically before he clenched them once more. He lowered his head for a long moment, and Sydney could only watch the veins in his neck until he met her eyes again. He looked like a man drowning, or burning to death. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Yes, he was. As much as he wanted revenge and as much as she wanted to say _fine, kill the bitch_—here they were at her kitchen table, bound together by the choice they'd each made to serve their country by justice, not vengeance; to play by the rules even—especially—when every second was a struggle.

Vaughn took a deep breath; let it out in a harsh rush as he stood. "I'll make the call."

"Is there anything . . ."

"No." Then, more quietly: "Thanks."

She watched him go without saying another word. At the door, he looked back. "Syd . . . I'm sorry."

They looked at each other, and she knew that it was really, truly over. The connection between them had been severed, almost as abruptly as it had formed, and she felt neither triumph nor sadness. The past was the past, and there was no point in trying to pretend anymore.

So Michael Vaughn walked out.

x

Reed was late.

Sark disapproved of tardiness, as a rule; his well-bred streak couldn't help but frown upon the implied disrespect, and his much broader streak of violent, sociopathic behavior did not respond well to disrespect, implied or otherwise. That was only one of the reasons for the Smith & Wesson 5903 currently in his right hand. The other reason—the main reason, in fact—was that the steps currently approaching him clearly were not made by Reed's ostentatious pumps.

With a smooth, almost casual motion, he raised the gun to aim squarely at the head of the intruder.

"Just me, man. No worries."

The sight of McKenas Cole did not inspire him to lower his weapon with a great deal of speed or enthusiasm.

Cole's next words directly contradicted his first. "Well, Julian, looks like we've got ourselves an itsy-bitsy problem."

"Do we." Sark's eyebrows rose, indicating his willingness to hear more. Rather than holster his gun, he crossed his arms over his chest and hoped, insofar as he actually gave a damn, that his holding on to the gun in Cole's presence wouldn't be considered overly hostile.

Cole's prominent jaw twitched back and forth, a sure sign of true anger—or at least strong annoyance—beneath his cheerful façade. "We do, my friend," he replied, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "It seems our little Miss Reed got herself into some trouble. Her husband figured things out and right now, she's sittin' pretty with the Feds. Not exactly a primo spot for our trusted mole, ya dig?"

Sark wondered if Cole actually expected him to reply with _Yeah, I dig._ He wondered if Cole also held out hope for the Easter bunny and Santa Claus.

"Is the Covenant planning on an extraction?" he asked in an impeccably neutral tone.

"Nah, nah." Cole waved the idea away like he were swatting at an errant fly. "Truth is, Reed was only good as long as she kept her cover, and now that's blown, there's really not much use for her. Her work's been sloppy lately, too—maybe the CIA was on to her. Anyway, she'll probably have a little accident sometime soon, but . . . just wanted to let you know. Congrats your promotion, man. North American cell is alllllll yours."

In a way, he thought that Cole was underestimating Reed's level of skill. She was a fantastic liar and a convincing actress. On the other hand, her apprehension proved that those talents were insufficient, and the Covenant had no patience for recovering such an agent. To fail them was to utterly discredit yourself, and your life was inevitably forfeit.

"Interesting," was all Sark trusted himself to say immediately. He did, however, finally put his gun in its holster and shake Cole's proffered hand.

"Try not to screw up," the man advised. His tone was joking. The psychotic, dangerous gleam in his dark eyes was decidedly less so.

"I will do my best. In light of the CIA apprehending Miss Reed, I believe the best course of action may be for me to lie low temporarily. In absence of any Covenant activity they may come to believe she was our only asset in the region, which would grant me a greater mobility in the future."

"Your call now, buddy," said Cole, already on his way to the door. "I'm headed back to Europe. Champagne here is _crap._"

And with those words of wisdom, Sark was left to his own devices. He kept his hands in his pockets and listened to the footsteps receding until Cole was well and truly gone. After two major escapes, the CIA would take no chances with Miss Reed. No matter what her ultimate fate, she would never be able to return to the fold, leaving him to run their operation single-handedly. By evening, McKenas would be on the other side of the Atlantic, in no position to bother him further.

Sark tilted his head to one side, wearing his usual smirk, but there was something in his eyes—something that looked very much like triumph.

x

Sydney felt a little bad, accepting meals from people as if she were an invalid, but Carrie had been too sweet to argue with. The two of them had never been friends, considering the relatively short amount of time between Carrie's arrival and Sydney's abduction, but seeing familiar, friendly faces was one of the things that helped convince Sydney that she had been right to return. And she still couldn't quite get over the fact that Marshall had gotten someone pregnant.

Hearing about Carrie's pregnancy had been one thing, but seeing her swollen belly and the happy glow on the other woman's face had involuntarily provoked the kind of absurd cooing behavior she had once sworn never to emulate. If Sydney experienced a moment of regret—if, for a moment, she pictured _herself_ pregnant, picking out baby clothes, visiting the doctor with Vaughn to hold her hand—she quickly shook it off. There was the life you hoped for, and then there was the life you got.

Despite her firm belief that she would start cooking _any day now_, Carrie's gift of enchiladas ready to be put in the oven was received with more enthusiasm than reluctance. She still felt a little like an invalid, but she was on her way to being a very well-fed invalid indeed.

The days at the Rotunda . . . well, they could be worse. After that night, Vaughn had avoided her more than ever, but since he was avoiding everyone it was hard to take it personally. She knew Dixon was trying to get him to take a leave of absence. He wouldn't force the issue, but it would be quite a long time until Vaughn was allowed out into the field again. Dixon remembered what Diane's death had done to him . . . what _he_ had done. He wouldn't wish that darkness on anyone.

She wondered if Vaughn would leave again. Perhaps he would, after Internal Affairs was through with him. The only reason he hadn't been arrested along with Lauren was that he'd been the one to turn her in; still, an exhaustive investigation of everything he had or hadn't known about his wife was inevitable. While she couldn't exactly conjure up sympathy for him being forced to justify his marriage to that pouty-faced harpy, she knew intellectually that it was unfortunate.

The doorbell rang, sounding a little too loud in the relative silence of her apartment.

On her way to put her plate in the sink, Sydney wondered who it might be at this hour of the night. Her father was a safe bet, as was Weiss—or anyone else from the Rotunda, for that matter. Nobody ever joined the CIA for the luxury of a full night's sleep.

The doorbell rang again.

"I heard you," she muttered. Something about the insistence of the noise made her want to go back to her room and grab a gun. Telling herself that she was just being paranoid, she walked out of the kitchen to face her unknown visitor.

She opened the door and was confronted with a view that simply made no sense. Her eyes skidded to the periphery of the scene as if to defend her brain from trying to understand what she was seeing. She took in Dixon standing on the right, an armed security guard on the left, and . . . there was no avoiding it.

Squarely in the middle, unrestrained and looking right at her, there was Sark.

Clearly, she should have gotten her gun.


	19. Chapter 19

Title by Paramore, quote by AFI. Almost done, by god! Mega-thanks to all the readers & reviewers, as always.

**XIX. Never Let This Go**

"_Are you in or are you out? You can't win either way," he said.  
_"_But the fall will be fantastic and what's left is nothing less than perfection."_

"Explain," she demanded with every bit of her father's intimidating growl. "Right now."

Sark was sitting next to her, at an almost puritanically safe distance, and Dixon was on the couch across from them. Her former partner glanced between the two of them, just briefly, as if he knew he'd missed something but couldn't figure out what it might be. Then, wisely, he commenced with the story.

"When Sark contacted us to negotiate your release, he offered us a deal: that if we agreed to his demands, he would help us to destroy the Covenant from the inside. For some time now, we've suspected the presence of a mole inside the agency, whose identity he was willing to uncover and disclose to us. In return, we agreed to a full pardon and part-time employment as an off-books agent, funded by the CIA's black budget."

"Part-time?" she echoed, part skeptical and part sarcastic. "What, like only 20 hours a week?"

Sark shifted slightly on the couch and spoke for the first time. "The arrangement is that my employment with the CIA will not prevent me from accepting other offers, should those offers be more lucrative. It wouldn't be a first for your agency, as you rather frequently employ outsiders to do your dirty work."

"Oh, like you're one to—"

"Syd," said Dixon, cutting off the makings of a venomous tirade. "Just listen. Your father was right—the Covenant wasn't happy about Sark turning them down, and they planned to either bring him into the fold or have him eliminated. Sark added the Rambaldi artifact to his list of demands to make it seem as if he'd planned to join the Covenant all along, and was only being delayed by his plan to use you against the CIA."

"He _told_ them— ?"

"Yes, I revealed the information to Cole shortly after my conversation with Kendall and Mr. Dixon," Sark calmly explained. "I gather certain elements of the organization were none too pleased, but he went so far as to commend my creative thinking."

She didn't look at him. If she looked at him, she would . . . do _something_, and it would be physical and most likely violent.

"So," she said, carefully biting off each word. "You let Vaughn find out on his own, so the Covenant wouldn't become suspicious?"

Dixon nodded, then added unnecessarily, "Yes."

He looked more grim than usual. When he didn't offer anything else, Sydney raised her eyebrows. "And . . . ?"

"Agent Vaughn acted just as we predicted," answered Sark, unburdened by Dixon's guilt. "I admit, I was under the impression that he might take matters into his own hands, but it seems you were able to influence him to act otherwise."

She knew, listening to him, that he didn't particularly care whether Lauren was alive or dead, or that Vaughn had been devastated to learn the truth. If these things had even occurred to him, they were nothing more than passing considerations that might affect the overall scheme. The truly sick part was just how much she wanted to reach across the careful gap between them and hold his hand, with or without the intent of eventually letting go.

"Now what?" She intended to be abrupt, but the words were full of more anger than she'd anticipated. Unlike Sloane, she hated secrets— almost as much as she hated prophecies and goddamn Mueller spheres. There might have been apology in the look Dixon gave her, but she didn't feel like paying that much attention.

"As agreed, Sark will continue to work for us until the Covenant has been dismantled. After that . . ."

"Why the hell," she interrupted, "would _you_ want to work for the CIA?"

She looked straight at Sark for the first time and told herself that his eyes couldn't _actually_ be drilling into her brain, because that was impossible. His stare was almost unfocused for a moment, as if he'd forgotten what they were talking about, but the customary smug inscrutability came back almost immediately.

One corner of his mouth tugged up. "Perhaps I'm just a dog," he suggested, "looking for a new master."

And with the utter inappropriateness that characterized every aspect of Sark and Sydney, she felt her blood begin to overheat. Without precisely meaning to, she licked her lips, and she noticed that those blue eyes followed every detail of the gesture. _Get rid of Dixon_, she thought. _Get him out __now_.

"Are we done here?" she asked, standing so quickly her head threatened to spin.

"One more thing," said Dixon, also rising to his feet. He eyed her warily, and she could see the bad news coming from a mile away.

"What?" She tried, and failed, to sound less than belligerent and exasperated.

"Another condition. Mr. Sark" — and here Dixon's mouth twitched with what could only be called hatred — "requests you as his handler in all of this."

_That's all?_

"Fine."

Her former partner stared at her, stunned, while the new one seemed to have become immobile on her couch.

"If there's nothing else, Dixon, I'll see you in the morning."

He outranked her, but he'd also been her friend for years, and Dixon knew better than to impose himself in Sydney's home on official business when she didn't want him there anymore. "Yes. I think that's everything."

"He's staying here." She pointed at Sark and raised her chin, silently daring Dixon to question or comment upon her decision.

Clearly caught off guard, her former partner looked back and forth between her and Sark. "All right," he finally conceded without a trace of inflection. "There will be a guard car in the street, whenever you're finished. Marshall made some modifications to the watch Cole gave him, so we can fool the tracking device, but we still need to be careful."

It was on the last word that Dixon betrayed himself. He didn't give a damn if the man who helped to murder his wife died in the most brutal way imaginable—in all likelihood, he was leaving Sark at Sydney's mercy in the hopes that she would exact some minor but painful revenge on her former captor—but he was going to do what he had to do. It was testament to the menace of the Covenant and the CIA's estimation of how useful Sark could prove to be.

She walked him to the door. As soon as she'd shut it behind him, Sark spoke.

"Sydney . . . I think you should know that I—"

"Shut up." After locking the door, she went to the window and watched the CIA's conspicuously nondescript sedan make its way down her street and disappear around the corner. Only after the red glow of the taillights were long gone did she turn to look at Sark. He was sitting quietly in the exact same position, observing her every move with his head tilted back against the couch, his eyes curious and alert.

She crossed the living room in three quick strides and stood over him, looking down at him with her hands on her hips.

Sark straightened his posture without ever breaking eye contact. "I realize you—"

"_Shut up_," she snapped. She had no interest in listening to him speak, a fact she emphasized by dropping into Sark's lap and kissing him with bruising force, pressing his head firmly back against the dark fabric. She propped one elbow on either side of his face for balance. He'd groaned in shocked arousal at her first onslaught, but soon he recovered as much composure as it was realistically possible to maintain under the circumstances.

It was a familiar battle for them, with their usual tactics. His hands tangled in the long curtain of her hair; Sydney pinned him lengthwise on the couch, resisting his attempts to roll her under. He finally managed a half-victory, pressing her sideways into the couch's back cushions, but in short order she pushed him back with too much of her strength, sending them both tumbling to the floor. Sark landed on top, a position she was willing to relinquish as long as he kept biting her neck like that.

She writhed between him and the hardwood floor, unsure of what she was trying to accomplish but incredibly frustrated by her inability to get as close to him as her body demanded. Her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him, and their kissing became increasingly desperate, a rough clash of lips and tongues and inarticulate noises evincing their mutual hunger.

"Sydney," he choked, struggling to catch his breath. She didn't give him a chance. In one swift movement, she flipped their positions once again, shoving his shoulders hard against the floor as a wordless and firm reprimand.

"Shut up," Sark interpreted correctly, panting against her chin, his eyes a glazed cerulean. "Right."

Without waiting for confirmation or further rebuke, he used both hands to pull her mouth back down to his. They held each other so tightly that the pressure verged on pain, but they wouldn't let go, or couldn't. Sydney tilted her head for better access and knew they would have to separate to remove their clothes. She was just too caught up in the sensation of his body against hers to put the thought into action. Damn him for feeling so good. So _right._

Finally the moment came when she just couldn't stand it for one more fucking second, and she reared back, clawing off her shirt and bra before she'd even made it to her feet. This was not her. She was not this person, this out-of-control woman who needed him more than anything else in the entire world. She genuinely believed that to be true, but right then it didn't matter. He was the anchor now, the precarious scaffolding keeping her together until she remembered how all her pieces had fit together in the first place. And that job currently required him to naked, _fast._

Never let it be said that Sark was a man to shirk his responsibilities.

They ended up on the couch again, a fact that only dimly registered in Sydney's mind, greatly overshadowed by the sensation of bare skin and the abominable ecstasy of him inside her. Both knew it wasn't going to last very long, but that was all right. They were along for the ride, the thrill of the finish and the long pleasant silence that would follow. To lie in each other's arms and wish there was nothing else.

Even in the end she wouldn't let him speak; she swallowed her name from his lips and dug her fingernails into his scalp and screamed down his throat. Too hard, too fast, too uncomfortably contorted on the perpendicular lines of the couch. Later they would move to the bed and they'd get it right.

She brought them horizontal on the cushions once again. He tried to move, but she slung one lazy, proprietary leg over him. "Stay," she ordered softly.

"Of course." His eyes searched hers, and she wondered what he was looking for, and if he found it.

She meant to stay awake, but it was so warm and comfortable tangled with him, and all higher thought processes were still obliterated. Her hand at the back of Sark's head felt separate, disconnected from her control. And at some point, as she listened to the slow steadying of their ragged breathing, she drifted off.

On waking, the first sensation she recognized was the gentle touch of his fingertips, brushing from the inside of her elbow to the palm of her hand and back in slow, repetitive movements. By the time she opened her eyes she'd realized that he must have carried her to the bed, and that Sark was lying behind her back with his chin resting on the curve of her neck. Even though she couldn't see his eyes, she intuited that he was observing the pattern of his hand traversing her skin. For a while, she watched too. Then she snapped her fingers shut like a bear trap, clamping down on his wrist, and enjoyed his jerk of surprise.

"Sydney," he said, his voice quiet and the essence of calm. "You're awake."

She couldn't help grinning at the deadpan way in which he stated the obvious. "Glad you noticed."

Before he could come up with a suitably haughty comeback, she twisted under his arm to face him. She ignored his obvious physical reaction in favor of examining those enigmatic (currently grey) eyes of his. "Thanks for staying," she murmured. It always surprised her, though he'd never done otherwise.

He shrugged his eyebrows and traced a zig-zagging pattern on her shoulder. "You did ask me to."

"What if I hadn't?"

There was the enigmatic smirk she knew and . . . well, knew. "I suppose we'll never know," he remarked, but softened the words by kissing her, slowly and deliberately. The way he usually did, when she thought about it. Sydney was usually the one to start the wrestling matches. When she wasn't feeling quite so enthusiastically physical, she liked the fact that he kissed her this way.

"Mm. I . . . liked you better . . . when you were shutting up," she shot back, completely without venom. Her lips were already tender and swollen, but the strength of her addiction wasn't ready to succumb to such insignificant obstacles. As if to defy her own body, she pulled Sark even closer— a move that left him momentarily breathless. In her more languid, thoughtful moments, she wondered how much of it was desire and how much was power play. She forced him to concede the power she held over him, but not without admitting that she wanted him. And he knew exactly how much that cost her.

Sark's head ducked down and his lips brushed the side of her breast. She closed her eyes, took a sharp breath. This kind of sex always felt so much more dangerous. It was submission, surrender. Weakness. It destroyed her barriers and left her so devastatingly vulnerable to him. It made her . . .

It made her love him.

The thought wasn't new, but she'd held it at bay so forcefully that the deep ache of it hit her all over again. It didn't seem important to figure out whether or not she was actually in love with Sark. What mattered was that right now, in this instant, she loved him so much that her body seemed unable to contain it. Her legs trembled beneath his warm, gentle hands. She wanted to run away from him, but she wouldn't. Was it because she didn't have the strength?

His fingers, then his tongue, so painstakingly thorough it felt like a ritual, something pure and dark and sacred. She buried her hands in the pillows above her head and shut her eyes tightly because she couldn't bear to look. She whispered his name, her fingers clutching for anything, and made a sound like a sob—

no. It was a sob, because she was crying. A tear slid down her cheek to her ear. "Stop," she choked, pressing her eyelids more tightly shut.

He stopped. She knew Sark was staring down at her, could feel it as easily as she'd felt his body. She didn't open her eyes.

"Sydney . . ."

She'd heard him say her name that way before, more times than she could count. And she was almost certain she knew what it meant. _Tell me what to do,_ he was asking. _Because I'm in over my head and I have no idea what you want from me._ Either that, or he was just saying her name, and didn't have much of a plan beyond that. But the thing about following your instincts was that you couldn't always stop to consider whether you were right or wrong.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice still a rasping whisper. "Just . . . not that."

Here was a grand topic for her next session with Barnett. _You see, it's all fine and dandy as long as we're fucking in elevators—I've got no problems when he bends me over a table in a Tokyo hotel room—but if he's going to start acting like he really __cares__ about me . . . forget about it._

"I guess it's not all that surprising," she mumbled to herself, wiping at her tear-dampened face.

"Sydney?"

She opened her eyes and looked at Sark, now lying next to her again with a careful lack of physical contact between them. As if to prove that she just couldn't win, this brought an inexplicable pain to her chest. "It makes sense," she told him, allowing his eyes to entrance her so she wouldn't consider whether or not she actually wanted to tell him. "That I don't . . . that I'm afraid to be intimate. With you."

She didn't know which was worse— the flash of hurt that crossed his face, or that he'd actually dropped his guard enough for her to see it. Both seemed like strange artifacts from a universe that, according to all reason, should not exist. Could he truly not understand the reasons for her reluctance?

Even as she watched, Sark's mouth tightened, his chin lifted slightly. The muscles in his jaw clenched tight beneath the skin.

"I see." His tone was smooth, clipped. Professional. Like razor-sharp teeth sinking into her lungs.

"No," she whispered desperately, frantic to make him comprehend what she herself couldn't make sense of. All she knew was that he _didn't_ see, and it was imperative that she explain as quickly as possible. She reached up with one hand to cradle the side of his face. "Please. Don't push me away."

The blue flame of a Bunsen burner had never scorched like his eyes. "Sydney, I'm afraid you can't have it both ways."

"I know." Again, the tears returned, spurred by her own mounting frustration. "I know, I just—"

Unsure of whether she operated on instinct or impulse, she used her hand to hold him in place as she leaned over and kissed him. It was the only solid ground she could count on between them: the movement of their bodies, perfectly in sync, perfectly capable of carrying on without the input of her conscious mind or conflicting emotions. After a few long, tense seconds, she felt his surrender, closely followed by his arms around her.

Of course, that didn't mean he was going to make it easy for her. Every move was torturously slow and soft, from his lips below her ear to his fingers twining with hers, pinning her hands on either side. Her skin felt burning hot, and she was already crying out his name as he entered her gently, prolonging every second. "Sydney. Look at me," he ordered, holding himself agonizingly still, buried inside her. He didn't move until she met his eyes.

Fucking was easy. Sex was relatively uncomplicated, when you got right down to it. But this . . . somehow, Sark had decided to _make love_ to her, and she didn't know if she would survive it. Presumably, there was traffic outside, but she heard only her own voice and his soft moans, twining together in the stillness.

Before she stopped being able to think at all, she wondered . . . what if he'd been making love to her all along? Under other circumstances, quibbling over semantics would have seemed absurd. Call it what you will, they'd had sex. But . . . what if all this time, she'd misunderstood? Could Sark have been pouring his feelings—assuming he had them, whatever they were—into every single one of these encounters? Did he actually—

Good _lord_, he was going to have to stop doing that if she was going to think. She'd known men who couldn't do with their entire bodies what Sark could accomplish with just that agile pink tongue of his.

On second thought, Sydney decided to fully abandon thinking. She angled her hips into the movement of his thrust, to very pleasant effect. His hands tightened almost painfully around hers, and then suddenly he let her go, sinking his hands into her hair and kissing her completely breathless, over and over again until her lungs burned and she couldn't give voice to the scream that should have been building in every cell of her body. Instead she just clung to his warmth, gasping out multilingual profanities as she came and feeling in Sark's shudder what her release was doing to him.

"_Please . . . Sydney . . ."_ It was so quiet, so raw and frantic that she didn't know if he'd meant for her to hear, and she didn't have the chance to find out, because soon he had collapsed on top of her with a strangled, inarticulate shout, spent and exhausted and so much dead weight until he was able to move again.

Only slightly closer to a clear-headed, conscious state, Sydney put one arm around his torso and stroked his hair with her other hand. Before clarity could bring with it nervousness and good judgment—before she could start to wonder if it was right, or if he wanted to hear it, or even if she really meant it—there was something she had to say. "Sark," she said quietly, her voice a rough, fatigued semblance of itself.

With the ease of practice, he nestled his face into the curve of her neck and made a soft grunting sound that might have been a response.

"Sark . . ." She closed her eyes, as if it made a difference. "I think I'm in love with you."

There was no initial response, only utter silence.

"Sark?"

Unfortunately, Sark was fast asleep, and after heaving a loud and long-suffering sigh over men in general and her personal homicidal and cuddly lover in specific, Sydney pulled the blankets over their bodies with one arm, caressed his neck one last time, and settled smoothly into oblivion.

x

There was always something unpleasantly disconcerting about waking up to discover that Sydney had left the bed. The faint hint of her scent on the sheets assured him that last night had been a reality, but it was hardly an acceptable substitute. Furthermore, 'her' side of the bed was completely cold, leaving him to wonder exactly how long ago she had gone. Normally, he slept so lightly that the slightest noise could wake him, but somehow his mind seemed to have catalogued the sounds of Sydney's movements and allowed him to sleep through them. Convenient in most cases, but not now.

It would also be something of a problem if she ever decided to kill him, but he preferred to believe his instincts would never be _that_ dull.

After collecting his rumpled clothing from the living room floor, Sark was able to categorically determine that Sydney was not in the house. His speculation as to her possible whereabouts was interrupted by her arrival. Dressed in running clothes, she briefly froze under his gaze as if caught in the midst of wrongdoing.

"Hey," she said with a quick, darting smile. "I went for a run. Have you been up very long?"

"Not particularly." He shrugged with the tilt of his head, his hands still in his pockets.

Sydney knelt down to remove her shoes, then stood up and approached him with an air of purpose that set him on edge—with good reason. Her fist shot out with too much speed to be dodged, and the punch caught him squarely in the jaw, making him stagger backward.

"That was for letting me believe you were working for the Covenant," she informed him in a level tone, shaking out her hand.

"I see." Sark touched his face gingerly and carefully moved his jaw back and forth. She moved forward again, and he started to step back. He couldn't argue with her reasoning, but neither was he especially eager to be on the receiving end of her anger a second time, no matter how well-deserved.

But instead of making any threatening moves, to his surprise, she stepped close and hugged him tightly, standing slightly on tiptoe to rest her chin on his shoulder. Her skin was slightly damp and she smelled of smog, clean sweat and deodorant.

The gesture wasn't so much unwelcome as it was unexpected and relatively without precedent. They kissed, they had sex, they conspired to kill people . . . but they didn't _hug._ Until now. After a hesitation that probably lasted too long to be overlooked, he hugged her back. He had, after all, been the one who'd told her that she couldn't have it both ways. This seemed a small price to pay to avoid hypocrisy. A very small price. Miniscule, really.

"I'm going to try," she murmured, so indistinctly that he almost didn't understand. Her fingers briefly tightened on his shoulder, and then she stepped away.

With an almost disconcerting speed, the expression on her face changed to one of dangerous and cheerful mischief, one that he'd seen on several occasions in their time together and that always precipitated something acutely enjoyable. "Shower?" she suggested, smiling impishly and extending one hand.

Far be it from him to refuse a lady's request.


	20. Chapter 20

Well, I'm afraid this is it, everybody. More of an epilogue than anything else . . . I would like nothing better than to have enough inspiration left to write a good sequel, but I can't promise anything. We'll see. For everyone who shared your thoughts and support during _Rivalita_'s creation, I can't thank you enough. I hope you've all enjoyed the ride as much as I have. With any luck, you haven't seen the last of me!

Title by R.E.M.; the song at the end is from the movie _Pierrot le Fou._ And one last time, thank you all SO, SO MUCH for reading.

**XX. It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)**

_2 months later._

"Oh my _god_," Sydney mutters as soon as the door is closed behind her. "I feel like a corpse_._"

As Sark watches his partner and official handler, bemused, she goes to the hotel room's queen-sized bed and collapses on the mattress with her feet dangling off the edge. With short, angry, movements, she kicks off her shoes and then begins to flex the arches of her feet, moaning softly. "And my feet hurt from wearing those ridiculous shoes all day," she adds, running a hand over her face.

He closes the laptop and approaches. He got back to the hotel about an hour ago, since his part of the operation had been more straightforward and bloody and hadn't involved cozying up to one of the Covenant's cell leaders to steal information.

"May I?" he asks dryly, as if she isn't practically begging him.

Sydney lifts one long leg to the level of his hands. "Do," she orders, in her uncanny impression of a pouty and spoiled heiress.

The noises she makes as he massages her feet border on the obscene, to say nothing of when he moves on to her painfully tense calves. It would be a very effective form of foreplay if he didn't know, without question, that in a matter of minutes she would be out like a light. Still, he places a kiss on the inside of her thigh, on the off chance that he might be wrong. "Mmm," she hums, reaching down for him. "Baby . . ."

No. It's a lost cause. If there's one thing he's learned over the past months, it's that only on the brink of a deep sleep resembling death will Sydney Bristow _ever_ refer to him as 'baby.' Which is perfectly acceptable, because only when she's too exhausted to be held responsible will he ever permit it.

If he thought it would make any difference to her in her near-comatose state, he would hold her. Instead, he brushes Sydney's hair from her eyes, returns to his computer and continues his research, only occasionally glancing at the sleeping woman on the bed with an almost imperceptible smile on his face.

_oh, my love  
__you never promised to adore me all your life  
__we never exchanged such promises  
__knowing me, knowing you  
__we never thought we'd be caught in love's web, fickle as we were  
__but gradually, without a word between us, bit by bit  
__feelings arose between our bodies mingled in delight  
__then words of love rose to our naked lips, bit by bit  
__heaps of words of love mingled gently with our kisses  
__so many words of love  
__I never thought I'd want you—oh, my love—  
__we never thought we could live together and not grow tired of each other  
__to wake up every morning,  
__surprised to still be so happy in the same bed  
__and want nothing more than the ordinary pleasure  
__of feeling so at ease with each other  
__but gradually, without a word between us, bit by bit  
__our feelings bound us tight in spite of ourselves, never to let go  
__feelings stronger than any words of love  
__known or unknown  
__feelings so wild and strong  
__that we never thought were possible before  
__don't ever promise to adore me all your life  
__let's never exchange such promises  
__knowing me, knowing you  
__let's keep the feeling that this love of ours  
__is a love with no tomorrow._


End file.
